from the teacher level. so many things that i would love to do that are all about changing people's minds about certain chunts, like the transgender community or the autistic community. i would like my daughter to know there's no wrong way to go through life. everybody experiences pain and grief and sadness, and that all of those things are temporary. # >> good afternoon. this is broadcast on sf govtv

thank you for joining us. [roll call] >> you have a quorum. for the record the directors cajina are attending remotely.

>> that places us on item 4. >> thank you. this is a quick update as we promised to let you know where we stand and the board of supervisors unanimously approved the recommended contract modifications, our second one to our two year contract with the channel and the final administrative steps to execute that amendment. in the meantime, over the past 30

plus days, we have completed a preliminary assessment of our more than 1200 shelters across san francisco, 1113. 26 of those shelters were notified to be in poor conditions with glass, lights and 128 feet. to those maintenance corrections that we will also work to take care of. clear channel has provided us with their maintenance activities database and we are working on that now to secure the backlog that you discussed at the last meeting with the term of contract and they have purchased materials to get started on, they have enough for 24 shelters and replacement of repairs that will start on the

19th and purchased additional trucks with additional staff and crew and will get to the full staffing by the end of the month but that may not be possible based on how everybody is doing with the hiring. that is the plan. thank you for your work on the contract amendment and board of supervisors got that approval now and that's where we are with the program. >> thank you for the update. colleagues, do you have any questions? >> what is the overlap between the 120, how many was it? >> 126 and the backlog. within the contract there was a requirement to essentially have an asset management score like literally every component of the shelter. the ones that were set at 126 based on multiple factors like this shelter does not meet any minimum standard of what we would want to have in the system. so we are almost at full

replacement for multiple issues. the backlog is just individual issues at the shelter like a missing glass, a seat that doesn't work. that includes backlog and the contract requires that those be secured within a certain period of time and now that we have executed this amendment, we want to be clear the channel complies. >> we were interested in how many shelters were in this backlog. were you able to tell how many of those shelters are in the backlog? >> if you include the 195 glass, 470 lights, info boxes, that tells you that at least 500 of them has some sort of issue, maintenance issue that requires securing of the contract, so at least 500 of them. >> okay, when we first started having this conversation, the idea is that it's a one time

refresh. how do we get our entire arsenal of shelters to all look as if the city is ready to accept new customers. from my perspective, what i would love to see is how do we get everything in the backlog or poor or moderate condition back to good condition. i want to make sure that the expectation is that all of our shelters should look great. so is that the same, is that how is being communicated to clear channel on the same wavelength, not just the 126, everything broken on the shelter should be "unbroken." >> that is the minimum compliance with the contract. we want to make sure now that the amendment is done and we are in the final five years, yes, the expectation is that shelters should be in excellent condition at all times and the contract

requirement that there are no issues and if there are, they are quickly resolved. our goal is to get all of those issues resolved that includes the ones in unacceptable condition and the backlog and that is clear and to keep up with conditions that occur. i'm seeing a lot more shelters that have the steel bar behind them. one more clarifying question. there are some shelters that are no longer in use because of lines that are no longer in use. what's happening with those. i have seen some shelters that were previously used that aren't currently used. are they part of the framework or waiting and seeing? >> feel free to speak up, our maintenance superintendent. she works regularly with our transit group and when we have a muni

project, we plan for relocation of shelters. sometimes there is going to be construction period or realigning stops along the line. we'll take those shelters and relocate them and use that inventory elsewhere in the system. >> okay, what i would like is if you are saying this is going to begin fell # in december, i know we spoke a while back and expediency is important and staff needed to be hired and we needed an assessment to be done. i would love to get, i would love for a report to come back within 90 days from that with what has been fully completed with the rest of the shelters, and what condition they are in now. i want to know about the rest. i want to know how long the backlog is, whether or not clear channel is meeting its terms and conditions and i think

we should have a shelter beshelter assessment. if they are doing this work, and because they are and supposedly we are going to be taking over this piece of architecture, i want to know how many are in excellent condition, not so good condition, so we can show the public all of this effort that we have put into this refresh. >> sure. >> thank you. >> >> thank you. we have some callers. director cajina.

>> thank you. i appreciate all the work being done. i would like a report as well and in terms of where those that are needed and especially how they are interacting with our neighborhoods and if you are seeing some trends there. i will also add that part of this 90 day report that you bring back, i would like to see an overlay of some of these hot spots with that equity overlay as well. can you give us some feedback on what trends you are seeing in terms of some of those repairs that you have already noted. >> sure. actually that is -- thank you very much for asking that. i fully intended on doing the analysis you asked for. thank you again for reinforcing it. now that we have full access to clear channel's database where they regularly take photos and we can see the work that is being done, all of those

shelters are geolocated so we can do exactly what you are talking about and looking at the patterns month over month and we wanted to have the flexibility around maintenance and add maintenance on the baseline condition for the riders' they use this system, but whethers to look at those partners where we are seeing continuous glass, continuous breaks and other things and so not dealing with it but taking your example and maybe understanding human behavior and where things are happening and why where we can work with other city departments to work with those issues in the neighborhood and along those lines. i think one of the biggest issues that we continue to have and i will give a good example, van ness, is a huge problem and we want to have glass in place where the riders especially when we get into the winter and raining, we have to

replace the glass. if it's not broken, it's not good for neighborhoods and gives a bad look to the shelter and gets to the bars. that is a pattern of behavior where we don't have a perfect solution to. it shouldn't be just absolutely removing the glass. we are going to have to work with clear channel on a compromise around that. i think the funny thing and i have noted this before, the digital shelters where we are going to be expanding those tend not to get vandalized as much. i have no idea why that is not going on. it doesn't occur and another odd pattern that we see and when we talk about the placement of those and the neighborhood conditions and those where the clear channel is at. happy to come back with that analysis and have a good robust

discussion about that. >> thank you, jonathan. and what i failed to mention and you just articulated this, as you are going through this analysis, understanding the toolbox and some of the behaviors we are noticing. that 90 day report would be great to see some of the solutions that you are proposing. director you mentioned one of them already and having that instead of a glass and how you guys are pivoting your strategy in real time as you are trying to address these issues. >> can do. >> thank you. >> great, thank you.

director hinze has a question. >> i wonder if in this backlog, in these shelters that are no -- in poor condition, are you thinking about what prioritization along the shelters we are seeing in place in equity priority neighborhoods and high rise. are we seeing that lay over of 90 days, kind of a high level to how you are thinking about allocating your resources for the repairs identified? >> we will do that and part of the reason we have that equity matrix as to how we make the repairs included. now that it's

executed we are going to talk with clear channel and the baseline for doing that and now that we have the database locations and the information for each of the shelters and we'll look month over month and that will inform the prioritization and where we do the work and in responding to director cajina, we'll have a treatment for different parts of the city for additional safety, cleanliness for the riders across the system. >> thank you. >> thank you. chair borden, you have a question. >> not to belabor the instruction, but do people ever get prosecuted or caught for

vandalism. have we thought about a campaign we can do with our partner to ask people to have grace on the shelters. it doesn't make sense to me that people vandalize these. also we have to do more if the solution is putting in a metal bar and what is the campaign for advertising where we ask people not to damage the shelters and people to report people damaging the shelters and whatever. i feel we have to do more to deter and rather than thinking of other solutions. maybe if we can talk about what conversations we have had specifically with clear channel and how we fix this. could they work with us on the are resources of the campaign and maybe get the content where they can help somewhere in one of their digital boxes that ask people not to damage the shelters and remind them to

report. >> what we are doing, that's a perfect question and i think we are setting ourselves up to do that exact thing. i'm referring back to human behavior and where we are seeing those patterns and why is it happening and the treatment. you are talking about stopping it from happening in the beginning. what we are doing now is looking at other cities, other transit agencies and even comparable cities to san francisco and levels of metrics to understand. a lot of people want to understand that it isn't just san francisco and what it is is what messaging and what kind of campaigns can be preventative. should people take pride in the city, please don't vandalize the shelters and hue that might work. we are looking at new york, chicago, to get a sense of are these patterns of

behaviors consistent in urbanized cities, preliminarily, it's not. i think that begs the question what kind of messaging can we get to the public to say, you own the transit system, it's part of your city. we are doing that work now and in 90 days happy to add that as part of what we can do as a tactic to try to stop some of this stuff. >> if i can just add, if we can get the y engaged in all this. i'm not saying it's all three but we have also the art program that is more related on the buses and thinking about this notion for a while of some of the take over and maybe there is a competition. but trying to do something where we have them crowd source a campaign message that reaches young people and

younger adults around this topic. i think it would be a great use of our just general constituecy of riders and a campaign that we can put together and organically everyone is helping to have input on. i think part of it is in san francisco, this culture of bad behavior and interesting because in some areas there are too many karens and because of this issue of trying to keep our streets clean and shelters nice, people look the other way and some people engage in that behavior themselves and how to get that mutual sense that we must improve things as a group. can you look at that and think about that with the team as some things to do because i honestly

think we are never going to solve this problem if we don't have a proactive upfront solution. >> i love the idea. i will go back to them and i think this is a great thing for them to engage on. absolutely great. >> okay. great. >> i tried to make this quick. i didn't even do a powerpoint. >> we know. so if there are no further questions from directors, i would like to open up for public comment. any public comment on item 4, on the transit shelter maintenance program & condition assessment. >> good afternoon, directors, i'm speaking on behalf of our teamsters 853 who are very

excited about this project going forward and the job fair going on so they can jump in boots on the ground and going forward. we wanted to express our partnership with this project. thank you. >> thank you for being here. any other comments in the room? seeing none, i will open it up for online comments. >> we have one caller in the queue. >> can you hear me? >> david, always happy to follow mark gleeson. yes, there is no materials posted on the website in connection with this item. i'm not sure that this needs a monthly or regular report, maybe an end report, periodic report,

but when there is a report on shelter maintenance, i think it would help to have some written materials in advance with some of the data points about the number of calls, number of replacements, average time it takes to replace the shelter with glass and whatnot. the maps of shelters with different conditions, people waiting there. people not waiting, people sleeping there, whatever, and photos of current locations on the service network, anyway, i also spoke to lisa earlier about a particular shelter that got whacked over the weekend and will be attended to. i know that is true. good work by jonathan

and lisa on this. thanks for listening. >> thank you. >> thank you, are there any other callers for item 4? >> no more callers. >> okay, we'll close public comment. please call the next item. 5. approving the sfmta's fiscal years 2022-2023 short range transit plan; and approving an update to the agency's internal bus stop guidelines as an appendix to the short range transit plan. (explanatory documents include a staff report, resolution and plan.) >> all right. good afternoon directors. shawn kennedy, transit planning manager here at the mta. are you getting a bounce back? so i'm doing a very quick overview of what we are going to talk about because i want to set the stage a little bit and then turn it over to steve who will walk through the specifics.

first off, i wanted to start noting that mtc coordinates short range transit plans throughout the agency in the region every two years. the last 2020, we did not have an srtp upped due to -- update due to covid. they are hoping to use these srtp's as way to advocate for more state and federal funding for transit operations which is great news, but in order to do that, they wanted and apples to apples comparison among all the agencies in the region. they provided us three scenarios and steve is going to walk through those scenarios. i just wanted to note that these are mtc's numbers. we are still on track to do what we talked about several meetings ago which is to implement 122 service

changes within the next 12 months and starting a robust outreach after that to look at what the future vision, what the future service for the city looks like. just wanted you to know what we are talking about today we are still on track for what we talked about previously. additionally as we do these updates, we take that chance to update policies and in this case even though it is a different format we are bringing a change to our flagstop policies and steve is going to be discussing that and we'll be here for questions afterwards and we can delve further into that point. with that, i will turn it over to steve. >> thank you, shawn. good afternoon directors. okay. as sean mentioned i'm here

to talk to you primarily about the short range transit plan. this is a document that we are required to produce as a condition of funding from mtc, it was updated every two years and typically about 100 pages in length, basically including policies and financial projections. however, the pandemic changed this and the last stp cycle was skipped and mtc has changed things up in a pretty significant way. what they have done is they have developed three financial scenarios which you can see here on the screen. this is an image developed by mtc staff. they have asked i believe 26 transit operators in the region to respond to those scenarios and best and worse case scenarios. the best case scenario actually

results in less revenue for fiscal year 23 and that sounds very strange but i will explain that in a moment. the worse case scenario is not an impossible case. it's important to that you understand these scenarios represent a narrow range of financial possibilities. so to be clear, this is not a criticism of mtc. there are very good reasons that they took this approach. sean alluded to they are going to use the collective srtp's from the other operators as a tool for additional funds as needed. however, i do emphasize that this is our response to the mtc scenarios and not necessarily agencies financial or service planning processes. as i mentioned before, mtc's best financial term called

robust and recovery adopted less dollars in 23. not because we have joined in less activities during the pandemic but because of inflation issues among other cost drivers and mtc's projections were with the low rates and started with a baseline and 2% which is well below current inflation rates. it's important to understand that while it shows slight reduction in service and the best case scenario, in reality, we are not planning reductions to service, instead we are still working to service that this board approved over a year ago. so getting back to the srtp itself is brief in a memo provided by mtc, and they asked us to fill in these basic

numbers looking at five years. that includes basic metric service with regular service hours to go along with those financial projections. so mtc regional operators were asked to look at what this looks like and what are our -- outstanding principles as well as our climate and equity goals and as well as economic recovery. we have been making in line with these priorities. so in the stp, we were asked to

give what these ideas looked like. we did space it to the extend possible we would seek to avoid suspension of routes like you saw in the pandemic and instead if the reductions were relatively modest with the mtc scenarios to service levels to head ways and spans of service and those cuts would be based on analysis and not radical conditions where it would have the least impact. so one more thing, i want to emphasize again is that the scenarios did not issue a dramatic drop in revenue and those with concerns as well as at the city level about what some call that fiscal cliff scenario under which would decline dramatically and that is not in this document and would require a steeper reduction in service. i want to shift gears and talk

about the appendix that sean mentioned that would include an update to reflect changes done by the board of supervisors namely what we call stops and there are vehicles parked along the curbs which require riders to go around as they go on and off the train. the current stops are mostly flag stops around residential areas. we are including this as an appendix because we have used the srtp in the past as way way to update the board. the board of supervisors has asked us to provide unobstructed access to buses and trains at these stops and that would be by providing at least 20 feet of red curb and no flag stops. in some cases, we

have a bus zone that the bus is pull into and the sidewalk extension. today we are just asking you to approve the policy change, but we have been working on a plan for implementation that prices are changes from our accessible services group. i do want to note that any actual physical changes that would be required on the environmental process and to front door to transit vehicles on the corner with approval from the city traffic engineer. we anticipate that we can implement roughly 75 near side stops per month. i do want to that had we may be returning to you for an additional meeting for additional authorization to extend red curbs on the far side of intersections beyond 20 feet because of a front door furthest from the corner. today we are asking you to approve the both guidelines

which is an appendix to srtp, we need to deliver the srtp to the mtc by the end of the year. part of the reason i'm sorry that you are having a special meeting today is because of that deadline. we are hoping to return in two years with an srtp to return with a normal condition. this concludes my presentation. i'm available for questions. i believe jonathan can speak to some of these issues as well. >> okay, thank you. if it's okay, director, after, go ahead. >> thank you, madam chair. could we go back to slide 9?

>> i an am a bit confused about this exercise because it talked about bart not running on the weekends. this scenario, did mtc ask for three scenarios or four? >> three. >> where did the fourth one come from? >> it's not in the srtp, it is in the sense that we felt obligated to the basis of our internal analysis with the mayor's discussion. it is that possibility that looming after and jonathan can speak to our internal financial projections.

it is not one of the three scenarios. in that federal funding but not that dramatic drop in the local revenue. >> the federal emergency funding is going to end and i believe earlier than bart, for example they stretched it out to 25. if mtc didn't ask for it somehow it found its way in the paper and what is your view on this scenario. >> our new cfo is here. eventually she'll be taking some of these questions. this is

something that we considered throughout the pandemic and it's something that we've presented in our five year and 30 year financial forecast simply that our own enterprise revenues never get back to prepandemic levels. we have shown the board this before that is a permanent bump down. >> where are we today in terms of revenue and ridership. >> you can sum this up. >> good afternoon. where we are with revenue is on top of mind

as well and we plan to present to you at the mta workshop. broadly speaking, i can satisfy we are definitely not where we were prepandemic and we are not where we thought we would be in the budget year. >> in terms of ridership, it's a little north of 50 percent, is that about right? >> so i think, what we are looking at is every year of the pandemic, what we saw is in the summer months, july, august, september, people were out, things trend wise looked like they were correcting and now we remember two years ago and the potential lay off and the reduction plan, and october, november, new waves of the pandemic and our projections didn't hold and things started declining. one of the things that bree is

working on and we are trying to close october and november. it is looking like people are getting the flu, people are staying home more than they used to without any occasion of any illness and we are starting to see that drop off. so all the financial projections, not heavy growth to restoration but month after month, things are getting better, but we want to share that with you at the board meeting. >> are we off course for this fiscal year? >> one area of weakness that i know about, we are year over year lower in meter revenue compared to a year ago. that is probably something that we should be concerned about that post pandemic and a year later

walking into dealt, our meter revenues aren't matching where we were. >> now we are sort of plateauing. >> we are going to go over that. >> you are doing very well not answering the question. >> the trend is not good. >> the trend is not good and what will concerned me about this report and alarmist, that i think there is enough evidence out there to be alarmed. my take on the thing and as you know i represent this board on caltrain and cal terrain is an agreement case. commuter rail road overwhelmingly driven by the silicon valley economy and our

economy here and they just dropped off a cliff just like bart did because they were so heavily dependent on fairs which in the old days used to be a good thing and we sent a letter saying way to go, guys. and now we know what independent revenue fair means with a down turn like this. i have always seen the mta operation being more diverse and the finances more diverse but that is seeming to be holding true and we lost our trend and we are sort of falling back. is that all fair? >> i think one thing we need to take into consideration which is one reason that bree and i are dancing around it is one point of strengths that he would well for us was the general fund. we

are waiting for a recap on the general fund projections which is something outside of our control. that is one factor as the city resteps itself post pandemic, we might have to rethink what that means, and that means us considering options, compensating with that revenue loss and with either parking sources transit fares and that is one part of it and the numbers are not coming back because people are settling into pandemic behaviors and those behaviors might be permanent. >> my problem here and i am coming to a point, colleagues. my problem is a bit of cognizant dissidence because you are confirming without giving me numbers that we are falling off the track of revenue projections. sean just said,

hey, don't worry, we are going to restore services like we promised you. well, restoring service costs money. at what point do we reconcile those two realities? >> this is my first big seat meeting, guys. apologies. i'm acting for jeff. what sean is saying, which is we are well inside of our budgeted service levels right now because of the -- pipeline. >> not enough drivers, right. >> we believe that we are going to be able to continue to meet the 2022 service network which is a relatively modest increase over where we are today, and still have time for the board to have a discussion about are we

projecting up, are we projecting down, are we projecting in the middle. we are also as service planners, our heart is with meeting the city's long-term goals of equity and climate change, so we remain optimistic that we are going too come up with a funding solution whatever shape that takes and is probably not going to be just that all of our previous funding sources magically reignite. >> that federal money i believe was over a billion dollars for muni and we basically burned our way through it all now. >> no. >> how much is left? >> if i may, again, cfo. we have this year, we have budgeted $371 million to use in this current

year budget. we anticipate that we will continue to have access to funds for bart to 25 and not only is revenue slightly down but our operators. when you look to hire staff you spend no money. the broad stroke is less than we anticipated and so are our drivers. >> the problem with that, when you have salary savings of the size we have, you want to fix that, right? you want to spend that money. if you get close to spending that money, then you get close to not having more money. >> that is the nuance. however the silver leaning because we have so much expenditure savings in the current year, we are not having the federal funds that we expected we would have in the

year. >> that's starting to make sense. >> the longer this trend goes on t more cushion it gives us at the back end and gives us a way to find another solution. we are giving us long enough runway to find another solution. >> we are not counting on more federal money than this but just spending it more than we thought. because of the republican house of dixie. >> that's correct. >> when is this? >> i believe in february. >> okay, that's not too long to wait. i appreciate you reaching this out at a regional scale because we want these systems to recover and provide new service, but you can't do it with no money. so, i look forward to that workshop. thank you.

>> i'm going to jump in the queue for a practical matter and seems that the meaningful aspect that we are doing is the bus stop update because that is real. i'm not asking about that. what i'm saying is as i read this document, is a series of hypotheticals if then then eventually but nothing in here actually ties our hand to do anything quarter by quarter the way that we have actually approved a real service change for 2022. >> that is correct. >> not to undermine anybody's work but that doesn't tie our hands to do anything. this is a series of hypotheticals and useful for fundraising purposes

but how much does this really matter. >> i will add one piece of nuance because of what was noted as diversity in mta funds. when we report to mtc, we report strictly as muni and with the transportation function as the complete mta and with a we did during the pandemic and what we do with these resources to shift due to the pandemic. it looks different than when you look at us as the complete mta. that was definitely an issue as we were talking about the transit federal relief in the region because it was kind of unfair that we were put in that situation and we are very careful for how we show these numbers and during the pandemic and even with these hypothetical scenarios and how they might

materialize. >> and as we handle those scenarios and you may know and when you draft this. just to clarify, nothing is tying our hands in the memo and we are doing what is best for the agency at this moment. >> correct. >> thank you chair of the moment, chair of the physical presence, with the other chair, i don't know. a few clarifying questions, director about one that i had. one particular piece of information i was hoping to get today was that delta between fare revenue and occupancy or clicks, we had 25% of fare revenue but 50-60% of boots on the ground. what is it now? >> that's --

>> with the whole fare guard. i'm forgetting the terminology right now. >> yeah, i remember the conversation. we have taken that back and it is a topic that we will discuss likely at the board workshop in and around there. your question has to do with the amount of riderships and how much we are collecting per trip. in our normal reporting based on all of our programs, whatever, there was a certain amount per trip that we collect from every passenger and that made up what our fare revenue was. i will tell you now that revenue per passenger is lower than prepandemic. there are reasons based on the nature and who the ridership is today. we have updated our ridership estimates. it was one thing we needed to do to check the estimates we showed you during the budget and now but now we are doing that underlying, what fare products are being purchased for the

ridership and as director noted two areas of difficulty for us are people who use mini mobile because there is no tagging or clipper. which is hard and we collect the data but not sure if they are paying through a fast pass or another way and we need to make an assumption around that and we have the sense of a revenue and hard for us to figure out the ridership. >> the board also voted not to increase fares in the last budget cycle. for me it's important to know what is the delta of the delta because every single person that stepped on to the single railway did not have fares and what i would like to know if not now then in the workshop, if it was 80% of fares, what is it now, 50 or

60%. if we are not doing this, maybe we need more on the collection side. >> that's an estimation of what the fare is and we will do a plan and the board has asked to have a discussion about this. we will have a discussion for this. >> thank you for that. the only other question is the bus stops. why do we need environmental reviews on that. i want to be the agency that says environmental reviews that seeming up the natural order of business and we are not doing that. can someone explain to me the environmental impact of why we need to do that? what is

that? the thing about ceqa, i can understand that and we can understand this policy change and if we start removing parking and we can do a blanket environmental review. we have had some discussions with our environmental review team that will cover everything upfront and at that point using the existing operation that the traffic engineer has and the pedestrian improvement at intersections that will often be at the corner for safety and we can proceed and that's how we can achieve what is i think a pretty good pace. i mentioned briefly we are talking about potentially 75 stops per month which is a lot and we can get through the entire cog.

>> before it was seven years that got people riled up and now a year 1/2. >> i want to clarify that just because the environmental clearance is a step that needs to happen, please don't interpret that it is a laborious or a long process. we are just trying to be transparent for this board and everybody listening that it needs to be completed and it needs to be a lengthy process. >> okay. i often hear that sometimes people use these environmental reviews as a way to stop things from happening. i hope that doesn't happen here. am i allowed to say that? i am. i hope people don't use that as an opportunity. that's helpful to know that it went to a year 1/2. that's more sensible. >> the seven year program

included more things. the total number we have in the system is about 1200. the far side stops that i mentioned in the presentation and we need additional authorization to address those and some we may want to convert to bus zones. there are other things going on. >> sorry, not to open the can of worms too much but crack it open a tad. how many are metered versus non-metered. for the ones that are metered, are we thinking of making up some of that meter revenue because part of the conversation we just had, we do need to make sure the meter revenue isn't completely eviscerated. are we thinking of a plan? >> good afternoon. planning manager. you asked about the seven year process and

originally, we had a different way of approaching this and a real major corridor that are in the frequent and rapid approach and was going to take a while. we switched and now instead proceeding with a 20 foot clear zone idea first and then we'll go back to the other locations where we want longer zones or transit bulbs. each one of these has to be looked at and that goes in to partly why it takes so long to do these 90 locations because we have to send out a work order to say we need 17 feet of red curb or 20 feet. it will change depending on what's going on in the street and at that point we'll be able to find out how many of these 900 locations do have metered parking and where we put it to

replace it or another location like that. that will be worked in that process and why we get 50-75 a month. that will ebb and flow as more commercial areas might be a little slower, more residential areas a little bit faster on the implementation side. >> okay, i hear you but the take away for me at least that is part of the analysis that is going in. how many of these are metered spots? >> i don't know the number right now. i know there are 900 that we are looking at and i'm not sure how many of those are metered or not. >> okay, can we know once that analysis is done? >> yeah. >> i appreciate it. >> director hemminger, had a question? >> i want to apologize about

this issue which i meant to ask earlier. i want to ask a legal question. are we certain that removing a parking spot here and there and somewhere across town is subject to any kind of ceqa action at all? >> good afternoon, directors, stephanie stuart, city attorney's office. director hemminger to your question, it's something that must be evaluated given the nature of the work that is anticipated. >> well, we can say that it won't be long and thorough but could also lead to litigation that is what ceqa is used for largely in the state is stopping things. if we don't have to expose ourselves to that, you are saying that's a determination you are going to make before we start this project? >> we will undergo the requisite ceqa evaluation to determine whether or not or the extent to

which ceqa has to be done. we had used, i think in a similar context about transit and non-motorized projects. i don't know if that comes in handy here or not because we are talking about cars, but have we analyzed whether that could be deployed in this instance? >> i'm not aware of whether or not that analysis is done but staff from my office is willing to look at all potential options. >> okay. >> i think that's a good example where using an exception -- exemption is still using ceqa.

>> where we are in some form of ceqa review, someone can take us to court and who knows, maybe we have the bike plan from hell that we are still litigating. >> i'm going to go jump in here, i appreciate that you are raising this, even with the slow streets last week, we went through ceqa for an exemption for ceqa and end of story. i really trust the city attorney to do their job here and find the most expeditious pathway for the process. >> even if there is an exemption, there is categorical exemption and because of what we are talking about, it shouldn't be a problem.

>> i guess we'll find out. >> director cajina? >> thank you, madam vice-chair. i appreciate the staff report and based on the presentation as well, i do have some questions on how well positioned we are to take on the implementation of this new policy. just to shed some call on this, i did see on the staff report that there can be some implications on for instance our pain shots ability to answer or to the responses to one request

and i want to ask from the staff how our team right now is currently structured to implement this policy, and if there are any adjustments we'll have to make in order to better position the team to do so. and what that looks like. and if there are any costs involved, any other things that they can anticipate we'll need to do to better position ourselves to take this on. >> fantastic, great question. sean kennedy, planning manager. right now we are overworked and we have a ton of projects throughout the city and we have a lot of feedback that people were surprised that it was going to take long to paint a red

curb. it doesn't take that long but our paint shop is doing a ton of stuff and talking with them with what they are currently working on and how to make these fit which is a substantial progress and looking at the locations that we can implement and that comes with a trade off and the 311 complaints and follow ups and backlog already in there and obviously if they take time to paint these red curbs there is less time for them to focus on these changes. we are coordinating with them and this number seems like a pretty reasonable number and as noted there are trade offs with this policy.

>> can you tell me what the backlog currently looks like? >> i believe there are 200 in the range. that's the magnitude i understood at. those are some concerns because if you already have a pretty heavy backlog and we are in a position to tackle 70 plus in addition to that backlog, and having challenges and just imagine how the work is and i have concerns for how we'll be able to address this policy. >> can i ask does that mean that you find something wrong with the policy?

i understand the implementation concerns and this is board direction for making sure there is access to buses and bus stops. >> i think we need to consider in the policy is how well we execute the policy and if there is anything we need to do in terms of additional staffing or additional direction that we need to figure out on the management side that we can support the director in his structuring of his team in order to be able to execute on the sorts of policies. it's always challenging to approve a policy and not being able to implement it. i appreciate your concern. another question i have if you can entertain me, can you also clarify how many of these flag stops are located on commercial

corridors? >> we lumped them altogether when we did the analysis and that was a total of 450 locations, so i'm not sure exactly how many fit in the commercial corridor sphere, but it's somewhere south of 450 but a substantial amount. >> with this policy, does it implicate other policies that we have on shared spaces on any other policies that involve curb side management including outdoor management, anything that can create some issues with the community. i'm wondering if that's something we should flag.

>> that's a good flag and working with the management team to make sure we are not doing that. that's why each place deserves and needs an actual site visit by the engineer to go on the street which is why we are looking at 15 foot or 22 foot curb that will need to be seen. >> this policy change will enable you to make those accommodations in the event there is a curb that is being utilized as a shared space or any other policy that is currently implicating the curb that would possibly be in conflict with this policy, is that accurate? >> yes, i believe that is

accurate. >> thank you. >> to address director cajina's concern, as i read there is no implication to deadline or promise to resources. is this a policy statement and the reference to staff as to how and when you would implement? >> correct. we wanted to give some kind of boundaries of what we were thinking about implementation but when we start doing it, there will be some changes. >> okay. great. >> thank you, vice-chair. i wanted to ask the questions around the accessibility component of this and staff met with me yesterday and put on the record.

so staff is going to try to accomplish these however many could receive the red curb treatment and then go back and do the ones that need bus zones and transit mobile center, correct? is that your current thinking? >> that is correct and the plan at this point. obviously once we get going and see specific locations, maybe there are somewhere we'll take a time out and advance the full zone, but at this point, that is the plan. >> okay, while you are doing the red curb treatment you can be working in concert with accessible services and in that case to make these either

possible stops or extensive comprehensive treatments to get this 20 feet of clearance. >> exactly, the idea is that enough staff will come with us when we do the site visits and we start flagging and we come back and do more extensive treatment and i think you pointed out in the staff report there are several treatments we would look at and flagging the first time we would go out there and the first ones we would want to come back to. >> yeah, i think with being part of the accessibility community what would be more extensive projects more possible, but given the need for as

expeditious to do this to satisfy the particular directives that we are getting expeditiously as possible. i would be supportive of a policy to paint all the red curbs and really do the detail more extensive treatments. i did just want to follow up on director cajina's concern around the paint given that we are asking for this and i don't know if mcguire is there. is the paint shop fully staffed and i heard there was not

hiring. do we have a number of our paint staff that we need to hire? >> good afternoon, directors, tom mcguire. director, the paint shop like all skilled trades in san francisco, the paint shop has had challenges of hiring. we are turning the tide and for a sense of that, our 311 queue every month grows or shrinks and it has been shrinking since the summer. we have been getting on top of the backlog of 311 and crosswalk painting requests. for the scale, we have a backlog of outstanding of 500 requests. that was over a month ago so we are making progress. >> and then sean and team, are

we going to -- i know you are trying to environmental review and to what you are actually ordering the paint shop to do it and what you can for the neighborhood period? what's your sense of how we are going to get this done? >> sure, so you are asking how we are prioritizing from these 900 locations? we are going to start in the equity strategy that we have lines identified for heavy senior and disabled use of those lines. we are going to start with those lines first and look at the overlap where we have the

near side flag stops and the frequent lines and eventually we'll get to some of the smaller kind of neighborhood services in the hills. >> great. directors, colleagues, i look forward to the more detailed version of the numbers for our board workshop in terms of having this fair for enforcement and where we go from here. for the board workshop and emphasis as well as the flagstop policy. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, director hinze.

>> we'll go to public comments. >> good afternoon, this is peter straus for the transit riders. this item came up agency # as the action came up and i tried to explain to them and not that mta is experiencing cuts at this time. we met with jack and he affirmed

and the fact that it was not committed to cuts but to service and to the 2022 service plan but to mention some service. i think the public deserves some clarity and needs to be consistent messaging of the agency's goal to restore some semblance of full service and not just 50% of the 2022 service plan. it would help to have a target date, not just the 2024 target of when full service might be restored. it would also help clarify the messaging to this goal to be stated clearly in the srt that the goal is to some restoration

of full service. thank you. >> thank you, >> next speaker, please. >> you have been unmuted. >> >> public speaker: my concern is about the long distance it takes to walk to a bus stop. for instance, from masonic and fulton street to baker and mcallister street, there is no bus stop, and that bus stop is actually eliminated. it's i very long bus stop and no one has done an evaluation of the impact

of bus stop distance to seniors and the disabled. this has been an eyesore and elephant in the room too long and you have done a medical finding on the impact of walking long distances to a bus stop. now, you are being shame fully derelict in not doing this. and it's about time that you start restoring some of these bus stops. you really have an obligation to the public to do this. it's not only the senior and the disabled, but the average passenger who walks to the bus stop and has his bus that he desires to get on whiz by. you are not serving the public and i don't see how any service to the bus stop has any affect on the budget or anything else. please restore this. you

are providing a disservice to the public and in fact why people are critical of muni; and rightfully so. passengers should have the same parody that bicyclist have. we really need to have those bus stops restored. i can't accept any rational for these long distances to the bus stop. >> okay, i think that is your time. thank you. >> >> next speaker, please. >> public speaker: david parcel mappel. the story is helpful but the detail lacks information. i saw no maps about the current transit level. there are

implications, the general fund is softening, there is a deficit of the next fiscal year during the afternoon between 100 and 300 million to the general fund. the recession is possible. the fiscal cliff is coming. i don't see the scenario here that director hemminger was discussing and the charges at the service level at the end for each staff scenario which doesn't make a lot of sense. i thought mtc's asked was reasonable with the service and driving levels and no analysis to the real world as to staff, as to ridership, service cuts or increase for that matter. the bus stop guidelines meanwhile are not related or required. i think it's a sneaky thing to include them here.

their ceqa implications and removing those stops citywide are implications. i think it would be better to review the lines and ridership to stop reduction and i would sever the bus stop guidelines and add a result clause asking to authorize a copy be sent to mtc and approve the srtp on the website. the 2019 posted as srtp is not the final adopted version. it was the draft. i did not like the cavalier attitude i heard earlier about ceqa and environmental review. >> thanks for your comments. >> next speaker, please. public speaker: good afternoon,

directors. i apologize if i misunderstood jonathan's earlier comment that the muni we are using first to estimate ridership because caltrain, are currently in the process to installing passenger to monitor issues to these terminals. in closing, my question through the chair is whether or not muni, light rail and buses are using passenger counters and if not, why not, thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. public speaker: good afternoon, district 6. i really appreciate the importance to the bus guidelines and to reduce

barriers to transit ridership. we already have the political will here with the unanimous vote of the boards and the authority process is done in this case. i'm honing that you can do this in a year or two and it's been well over a year since the board passed this resolution and we know how long in general it takes to pain a curb. i know it's not as simple as grabbing a paint roller but we should not over complicate this. the city of emeryville was able to install seating at bus stops in one year. i would love to see creative solutions to speed this up. if we need to give notice, can we notice the entire city at once. and can we do one packet for the entire city and can we

send an engineer out to work alongside the paint crew. and if they are painting the bus stops, could they refresh the bus marking at the same time. there are a lot of which are entirely unmarked and won't know where the bus stop is. i think there is a wide range of advocacy here that would like to help the agency to advocate for funding and as that process continues, i hope you can take advantage of that resource and engage in and speak up for more chances. thank you. >> thank you, >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, edward mason. regarding flag stops, there are situations where you require

neither a flagstop. the reason is, on castro street, at elizabeth and 23rd and 21st and 20th, you don't want to stop at the curb because those are very steep hills. consequently what we currently have and most operators follow is stopping on the flat section of the intersection, and it is accessible because of the curb cuts that are currently available for a wheelchair. if you were to stop on the grade, it's impossible to lower and deploy the wheelchair lift. especially if you are on crunches as i was stopping on the grade, boarding and

reboarding is a problem and if you are carrying groceries and you are stepping on a grade, it's that much more ability that is the issue. so you need to put into this provisions to obtain those stops in the intersection where it's flat and evaluate where it is in the rest of the city. thank you. >> thank you, >> next speaker, please. public speaker: hi, my name is lisa church, a resident. i want to say first of all thank you very much for pushing forward on getting all of these stops eventually painted red. i believe at the last meeting it was 1600 and somehow we are talking 900 now, but i'm very glad to see this happen. i would

agree with the previous caller that i hope that we can move forward as quickly as possible if we can notice everything at once, whatever it is. all of my bus stops are flag stops and some of them are very dangerous. i also think the person wasn't being flippant about the environmental tool and we know that it is a tool to delay projects. it's important but shouldn't should be allowed to move this along. thank you for pushing this forward. i'm very happy to see it happen. i hope we can do it in an efficient way a possible. i understand the paint shop is backed up and should have urgency of paint job related among others. i look forward to having a safe bus stop. thanks.

>> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> public speaker: hi, board. luke calling to praise you and other advocates. thank you for your support and the timeline for getting the bus stops painted and want to echo many on the call to speed up the process and working with engineering to try to agendaize all the stops in one meeting just to limit global act from public comment and not have to go through 3-4 rounds for public comment, as well as to get it done in one sweep. also it would be great too include in that to make it illegal just to really set this

precedent to get people aware of it as soon as possible. yeah, that's about it. thank you all for your support of this. it's a really important issue and sends a message that we value public transit and value people's time and their safety getting to bus stops. thanks again for your time. >> thank you. that concludes the item comment. >> thank you. may i have a motion. >> [roll call] >> thank you. the item is approved. >> okay, colleagues. i have to leave the meeting. i will pass the mic back to chair borden on

the phone. >> please call the next item. >> 6. authorizing the director of transportation to execute modification no. 4 to contract no. 1304, muni metro system king substation upgrade, with dmz builders to agree to a global settlement of all contractor's delay claims, which were primarily caused by pg&e activity, extending the contract term by 950 days to january 12, 2023, and increasing the contract amount by $2,550,000 for a total contract amount not to exceed $15,372,966; and making environmental review findings. >> great. we'll move on to staff, please. >> i'm the project manager. >> please get a little closer to the mic.

>> my name is colen, project manager. >> we are here today to get your approval for the modification for the global. for $2.5 million and the contract extension. this project, you can see that on the slide, the location is very close to the park. and in order to the program sub station, we had to install the scope of the sub station and that is a problem from pg & e and the various stages of the project

that put us in a bad situation and that continues over the pandemic, and once we cut the power of a year 1/2 of delays, when we start moving the project from the mobile substation, it is a very compact mobile station, so it's a very high voltage, so we need to make sure we fix this issue and we brought in a contractor and modified the locations with eight of them outside of the mobile station. with the new model, and that worked out pretty well. so far we don't have any problems. the

mobile station is giving power to that king street and subway. once all the connection from the mobile substation, we want to work on the permanent substation. in order to do that, we need to turn off the power, and they took more time. and it's also about three plus months delay on that one, and that also caused the contract to be much more late. the first one is the shutdown we had it in early stages, and not knowing when the pg & e is going to give us the power for the mobile substation, and that was pretty straight forward. we told them when to stop, when to start

with the minimum staff on-site. and that was a while back. the claims are pretty complicated and we hired them out and we did an independent documentation with our internal and this includes the overhead delays as well as storage because they came to work 2018, and mostly their labor costs went up and they added labor for escalation.

this $2.5 million includes the installation and they had a long negotiation back and forth eventually we found that $2.5 million is justifiable. we ask for your approval for that one. as i mentioned that most of the delays is related to pg & e and not giving us the timely responses and conditions with a malfunction and conditions and that we want to shutdown to do our work that we want to be sure we are quoting it and what we are testing now of the trains.

>> does that complete your presentation? >> one more page. currently the project is all the recruitment is installed, all the work is done and they are doing the testing currently and we are hoping that will be done next year, and once that work is completed, we will ask pg & e to come one more time to power up the permanent substation. that's what we have now. i'm more than happy to answer your questions. >> okay, i think a lot of people, i mean there is a lot of issues here with the fact that pg & e did not do what they were supposed to do and this is

severely delayed. how does that factor into the settlement that we have arrived at? >> so this is kind of being able to pay even though there is some pg & e delays we can go after them. i will leave our counsel to respond to that one. we have a contract with them. but to have to pay the contractor now and see what we have to do to get all the money back from pg & e. >> does the city attorney want to weigh in on that before we dig into this. i know this has concerned people. >> good afternoon, deputy city attorney. with your question, chair borden, what we can commit to do is go after pg & e to the

greatest extent possible and we'll do all that we can to try to recover anything we can but we can't make any guarantee with respect to getting any payment from pg & e. >> we just decided to settle it now because if the cost go up and we don't settle it at this time? >> yes, if we don't settle it, they can sent the potential to government court claim and probably note complete the work and we can't take the chance because this follows central subway as well as all the king street one. this is a very critical project that we can't delay anymore. >> okay, i'm going to director hinze.

>> so pg & e was not involved in this settlement and negotiations? >> could you repeat that question, please? >> was pg & e not involved in these settlement negotiations? >> no, currently with sf mta and the contractor. >> yeah, for the record, i would agree with chair borden that it seems like for meeting this side of it in your presentation that pg & e is the party most at fault here. so i would be in favor of trying to go after pg & e for as much as we can because most of the credits that we have

and our contractor with the pg & e delays and they should be able to to some extent be held liable. i know the city attorney claims that there is no guarantees, but i would give it all that you can. yeah. >> are there any other directors? i can't see any hands up. do any other directors have any comments at this time before i move on to comment? >> madam chair, a brief comment, apropos our other item. it seems to me pg & e are like ceqa, they cost you money and time and not a lot you can do about it. i wish we could. thank you. >> thank you. any other directors before we move to public comment?

>> no other director. >> great. we'll move to public comment. does anyone in the room like to make a public comment? >> no speaker here for public comment. >> the speakers online. >> david propel, last comment today, perhaps the last comment of the year. the presentation today is not posted on the website. if you can see that letters posted. by the way, last resolutions are not posted. i have no objection to this item but suggest the story behind it be sent to sf puc as another document in the continuing horror story that is with pg & e

and as much with san francisco and they have delayed and caused many problems for city departments and our ability to -- this is a small example and if this is how long it takes to do a small upgrade, good luck to us in the electric building infrastructure for the battery vehicles for the various divisions they are going to require who knows what, and i'm very concerned about the implications there. finally enclosure three the budget and project financial budget plan has to specific line item for today's action. i would find it most helpful in the future for these one page budget financial plan to have an action on the cost side and corresponding line item for the

funding sources so i know what's funding this 2 million plus on the contract mod. i'm not suggesting that anything fishy is going on here, just suggesting a documentation should be available to the public. this meeting now january 7th. happy holidays. >> no additional speakers. >> okay, with that, we will close public comments. directors, is there a motion. >> i will move the item. >> second. please call the roll. >> >>clerk: on the motion to approve, [roll call] >> thank you. the item is approved and that concludes the business before you this day and

this year. >> thank you. i adjourn the last meeting of december 2022. i wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and we'll see you all on our next meeting january 17th or or workshop in february. thank you. >> >> >> >> 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. [♪♪♪]

>> welcome to union with square the petitioner of harvest of san francisco which is wllts go on it means- >> we're so excited to welcome the ring side for the 50 year in a row and excited about downtown and come ice skating with the holiday season is here in the

square.? an opportunity for every one of all ages to come down and enjoy the ring in fact, if you can't skate that's okay they'll help you around the way. >> it is fun for our whole family come on down and enjoy isn't heart of san

>> for us, we wish we had our queue and we created spaces that are active. >> food and drinks. there is a lot for a lot of folks and

community. for us, it started back in 1966 and it was a diner and where our ancestors gathered to connect. i think coffee and food is the very fabric of our community as well as we take care of each other. to have a pop-up in the tenderloin gives it so much meaning. >> we are always creating impactful meaning of the lives of the people, and once we create a space and focus on the most marginalized, you really include a space for everyone. coffee is so cultural for many communities and we have coffee of maria inspired by my grandmother from mexico. i have

many many memories of sharing coffee with her late at night. so we carry that into everything we do. currently we are on a journey that is going to open up the first brick and mortar in san francisco specifically in the tenderloin. we want to stay true to our ancestors in the tenderloin. so we are getting ready for that and getting ready for celebrating our anniversary. >> it has been well supported and well talked about in our community. that's why we are pushing it so much because that's how we started. very active community members. they give back to the community. support trends and give back and give a safe space for all.

>> we also want to let folks know that if they want to be in a safe space, we have a pay it forward program that allows 20% to get some funds for someone in need can come and get a cup of coffee, pastry and feel welcomed in our community. to be among our community, you are always welcome here. you don't have to buy anything or get anything, just be here and express yourself and be your authentic self and we will always take care of you. >> my name is holly doudiet.

h2 firefighter with the san franciscowired. what inspired me to be a firefighter was in 2008 i graduated college . the recession had happened so there weren't any jobs. i was having troublefinding a job. and i was kind of looking around . my dad was a firefighter and i thought what a great career he had. so i asked my dad, never thinking about it at first before. i said dad, what you think about me being afirefighter and he goes yeah, thatwould be a good idea . i took some classes, i ended up loving it . i grew up and actually and i think it was a good fit for me because it's a physical job and it's enjoyable. you never know whatyou're going to get and it's a team effort . i first realized i was part of the lgbt+ community in sixth grade. i looked on the other side of

the classroom and i sawthis girl i thought was really attractive and i thought i want to be her boyfriend . though my experiences in the city growing up in the city and countyof san francisco were always verypositive . i came out in high school . i actually ended up being prom king my senior year in high school and a lot of peoplewere very supportive . myparents were very supportive . they just let me do my thing and my dad knew of a lot of lesbian women in the fire departmentthe time because he was a san francisco firefighter . for me it's very important to be part of a community and organization and an agency that supports my lgbtq status because if you're not yourself, how can you perform to the best of your abilities? you're always holding back in some way whether it's your personality or your abilities

or your overall skills and with agency that supports me being a lesbian i can truly be myself. i can be happy. i can be social with other people. it makes me want to work as a team and we all work better together when we are happier and we can be ourselves. >>. [music] >>

>> good morning i'm so honored to be with champions of-in the fight for civil rights and getting the bill across the finish line. the respect marriage act is affirmation the united states will stand up and protect the freedom for all americans to marry the person they love. it is reflection of the fact that for overwhelming majority of americans across political parties back fp grounds and every corner of the country the debate for marriage equality is settled. it was at city hall nearly 19 years ago when our governor then mayper begin issue mayor license for same sex couples regardless of it consequence. the court battle lead to success sfl lawsuit by equality california represented by friends from land legal (inaudible) aclu challenging the state maerj bans. we move victorious in the fight