buddy i now call the february 4th, 2025 regular meeting of the municipal transportation agency board of directors and parking authority commission to order secretary silva please call the roll on the roll director hemminger here hemminger present director henderson henderson present director lindsey present kenzie

present director karina your present chair tarlov present taddeo present director chen is expected to join us later this afternoon. for the record, i know that director hensley is attending this meeting remotely. director hensley is reminded that she must appear on camera throughout the meeting and in order to speak or vote on any items places you want item number three the ringing and use of cell phones and similar sound producing electronic devices are prohibited at this meeting the chair may order the removal from the meeting room. any person responsible for the ringing or use of a cell phone or other device places you one item for approval of minutes for the january 21st meeting directors i did receive an email from herbert weiner requesting that his public comment summary on page 12 under item 12 be amended to include that the project should be postponed if you are so inclined you may approve the minutes with this amendment directors are there any objections to approving the minutes as amended or other changes to the minutes?

i will now open public comment for item four. very good members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. there will be a warning sound at 30s and then a chime when the time is up any speakers can come up to the podium. >> this is for item for the minutes. okay cnn thank you will now close public comment. colleagues is is there a motion and a second to approve the minutes motion to approve as amended second secretary silva please call the roll on the motion to approve the minutes. >> director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson i director kinzie i nci director of the gina because you know i chair tarlov i tarlov i the minutes are approved places you on item five communications i have none moving on item six

the directors report due. good afternoon. i'm going to be covering a number of topics in this report. the first relates to the end you did turn around last year this board approved a series of safety improvements at the terminal for the end judah near ocean beach. those changes were in part motivated by community feedback and in part based on concerns we got from our regulators. the cpsc. we heard recently that some of those changes may not be working as well as we intended and so in an effort to continually iterate and understand the changes we put in place, we went down to

the site and had a meeting with some local merchants and staff and supervisor and cardio. during that visit a pilot was conceived that would change slightly the layover of the due to train moving it halfway around the clock. if you think of the terminal as a loop the purpose of the pilot was to evaluate this change for both local businesses and residents to also look at the impact to our operators because it would be stopping in a less convenient spot for them as well as specifically our customers with disabilities that are impacted by a key stop at that location. we received a large volume of

feedback. we also had our own observations on this four day pilot and we're going to be unpacking that input and working with the community determine next steps. but because we did receive a lot of input i wanted to let folks know that it was a four day trial. we want to try things because that's how we learn continuously iterating is is really important for our work and we will circle back. i also want to talk about a service impact that we had on friday both the market street and the central subways were shut down for several hours on friday march 31st due to a vendor error in the kind of unvarnished truth vendor doing work on our fire life safety system pushed a button that

said do not push this activated our halon fire suppression system. when there's heavy electronics we use halon gas instead of water in order to protect our electronics. we are now reviewing how we schedule routine work on critical systems to make sure that we as much as possible are working in non non-peak periods. we are also reviewing how we support and interact with our contractors and improving our clearance process, reviewing how our aging electrical systems needs to hold together in this tough transition time while we go from the old to the new train control system is also going to be important. and so we learned a lot about how different electrical systems were actually connected as a part of this evacuation. so we really apologize to all

of the customers that were inconvenienced. i am so impressed by the staff that worked so quickly to get the word out to our customers. at one point we were not able to use our audible announcement system so the station agents were on the platforms talking to customers. really everybody came together to make this as least impactful as possible. i'm also very grateful to our partners at bart who provided mutual aid and to all the bus operators who came in to support the subway. the next thing i want to talk about is a speed safety camera public education campaign. this is work that you know we are so proud of to support driver safety and pedestrian and bicycle safety in our system. on january 27th we launched our citywide public education campaign to let people know that speed safety cameras are

coming soon. one of the most effective tools we have for safety is reducing the speed of traffic on our streets. the example of other cities shows as speed safety cameras have proven their ability to reduce speeds and encourage drivers to slow down. we're excited that the speed cameras will go live this spring and the public education is a priority so people have time to adjust to this new system. public education efforts will include multilingual materials, billboards around the city and digital ads to ensure everyone understands how speed cameras will be implemented and why they are needed. it's very much our intention to have a citywide side benefit to this program as we study the specific locations that we have been allowed to implement. the campaign is now live on billboards and bus shelters across the city and the campaign also includes an

animated video created by a mad walker of the hunters point shipyard artists that's being used in our digital campaign. >> we supplemented this work with a proactive media strategy to increase public awareness. there's been coverage in the san francisco chronicle and the local tv news camera testing starts this month and will begin monitoring speeds as early as march. there will be a period of at least 60 days where there are no fee warnings as people get used to this system. our goal is not to penalize drivers. our goal is to shift driving behaviors to slower, safer speeds. any revenue generated from this program will be directly invested in street safety treatments as well as if we can get legislative approval for expansion. congratulations to justin hahn and shannon hake of our streets division on this milestone

bringing us one step closer to speed. safety cameras going live in our city. next want to talk about a really hard topic. i use enforcement on muni vehicle as is is a possibility that we have had to confront. and i want to address this topic because it it's concerning to me it's frightening to many of our staff and our community members. and i know it's a priority for this board over the last several weeks there have been several rumors circulating that the immigration and customs enforcement at ice entered a muni bus as part of an immigration raid. i want to really make sure that the board knows that these rumors are not true. we conducted extensive internal investigations on this matter. we worked very closely with city partners, the city

administrator's office as well as the police department. and we can confirm that it did not happen. we want to do everything we can to support community members to feel safe in our facilities and on our vehicles while also following the law. if ice agents do enter a muni vehicle, bus shelter or train station or any other place our employees work, we have protocols in place for what to do. to summarize the city policy city agencies and employees are prohibited from using city resources to help ice in enforcing federal immigration laws. so 70 employees will not be assisting ice in enforcing immigration laws. if ice agents contact s.f. mta employees or enter any sfo mta property or vehicle our employees will immediately notify their supervisors and the transportation management center. then the supervisor will call the city attorney's office. it is important for the public

to understand that according to the law city agencies and employees cannot prevent federal enforcement from happening in san francisco. so our employees cannot prevent ice agents from entering our vehicles, stations or stops. we know that many of our community members are feeling extremely vulnerable and we want to do everything in our power to support them. that is why any rumors we hear will be quickly investigated and we will let the community know as quickly as possible. if there's just rumors or if any actual ice raids have taken place, i also want to direct the board in the community to the city's website. sfx gov. know your rights. we are working closely with the city to make sure that people have the resources they need to confront this very difficult time. >> finally for some good news i

do want to wish everybody a happy year of the snake. one of the beautiful parts of being in this acting role is to celebrate with a lot of our partners in chinatown and in other neighborhoods as they celebrate the lunar new year. this year we are really we're really testing the complexities of our city system because san francisco will be hosting two large events the weekend of february 13th to the 16th. so we'll have the nba all-star game and the chinese new year festival and parade on the same day. the eyes of the world will be on san francisco and it's a way for the city to highlight itself regionally, nationally and in the international media . the chinese new year parade is one of the oldest and largest

of its kind outside of asia. the parade showcases the best of our city and its rich history. the board of supervisors has committed to moving forward on moving funding from the general fund in order to honor this time so they will be covering parking and muni fares for the parade. what that means specifically is we will be offering free fares systemwide excluding cable car for the weekend of the parade saturday february 15th and sunday february 16th. this will include all of the trains and busses on the west side and other parts of the city designed to make it easier for the sizable chinese communities on the west side to travel to chinatown for the festivities. we will also be offering the first two hours free for customers who pay for parking in the sportsmen's portsmouth street garage january 28th to

february 28th which anticipates one month of preparing for and celebrating the holiday. and as you know we also supplemented preparations for the holiday by increasing muni service for two weeks before the holiday as people went to chinatown for shopping and to prepare to support their family meals. the effort to have free parking and free muni came together largely by the initiative of supervisor chan of district one of the richmond and supervisor sauder of district three of both chinatown and north beach. we are happy to work with them on this and help generate business in chinatown contributing to our downtown economic recovery. and i appreciate that they have done this in a way that it will hold our agency financially whole and so the expenditures will be covered from city city sources. as fda has been working closely

with the nba, the golden state warriors and the city partners to prepare for both events for the nba all-star weekend events will take place from february 13th to the 16th. they'll be major venues at the chase center, the moscone center, pier 48, the hilton union square and the oakland arena. we will see typical transit reroutes and street closures for the parade and there may be some street closures around the chase center in the mosconi center for the nba events. 70 will provide supplemental transit service to the chase center as well as allowing folks who are staying in union square to visit chinatown and our other transit neighborhoods. the s70 is also supporting the all-star alley on powell street between market street and geary which will include an nba related popups, a decorated cable cars and other decorations.

thank you to the parking control officers the transit supervisors and the other staff who will be supporting these very complex events. and then finally i just want to end again on a lighter note. you know, when you get a call from the transportation management center 6 a.m., you never know what you're going to get. but what i what i got on january 27th was was was a first for me. we had two furry guests in the central subway. january 27th we had two coyotes that entered the bryant portal northbound our sweeper train spotted the coyotes as part of their safety preparation to open the subway. we continued to sweeping following the coyotes into the chinatown station.

we contacted animal control but it was a little too early for them there. it was before 6 a.m. but the coyotes found their way out. so the central subway began operating with no delays. >> thank you. that concludes my report. >> thank you. acting director kirschbaum we will now open public comment for item six the directors report. >> members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. there will be a warning sound at 30s and then a time when the time is up. >> i do have one speaker card for barry toronto. i happy lunar new year my few times i could show up with only

about six hours sleep because i worked early this morning i wear monday but anyway i want to say thank you for saving their coyotes. the next thing is the all-star game. >> that weekend is probably the busiest weekend outside of the week where we had the jpmorgan conference for taxis. the thing is i wanted to do a shout out for phillip and david louis. >> david lewis, investigator for arranging to give us a taxi stand near chase center. >> considering that all the streets are blocked off around the chase center due to the crazy guy that ran over all those people in new orleans. so but the thing is is please have the pictures enforce the hotel stands. >> please make it a priority and please make sure that the taxi zones are free for us to use because this is the time when we can serve as ambassadors to the city.

the tnc these are not ambassadors because most of them have never lived in san francisco and maybe only never really driven to south cisco until they got this this part time job or if so i'd appreciate it that we get some type of priority in order to serve the people coming for the other events. in addition to the all-star game on the 16th and round one and last thing there is scott had a hearing brian is a great guy, great. >> he had a hearing regarding having a street festival on on front street on the 15th. it was moved from the 16th and it's going to create a problem in relation to the to the parade. so i don't think you should allow for it unless they want to hire a lot of picks in order to direct traffic. >> it's going to be a mess. thank you. thank you. your next speaker. >> hey, good afternoon. my name is haim and organizing

outreach manager for san francisco transit riders in a ten point resident. yeah. thank you for the info about the ice raids and also with the speed safety cams i know mta has been communicating with the tenderloin traffic safety task force. also great to have free transit next weekend but this is kind of like we're missing an opportunity in terms of comms and it was mentioned that you're you know letting people know about the speed safety cam. i'm not sure if i heard like parking garages is one of those places to let people know i think it's good to go where car drivers are. >> and same thing with the free transit weekend. i remember last year people were still tagging and nobody knew it was free. i think some operators also did it now so i think there's an opportunity to really highlight how transit is important for the city especially what we're trying to push for more funding for it. so i know you have about a week to put it together. of course those transit riders will do our part as well. and then finally with the ice raids i think putting know your

rights you know fliers inside busses in multiple languages would be really helpful. i mean i had a little bit more of like that perception of safety against ice especially for a lot of our riders. yeah. so that's it for me. let's work on our calls, make sure everybody knows what people need to know. >> thank you so much. thank you. next speaker. thanks. good afternoon, directors dylan fabrice with san francisco transit riders and happy transit equity day rosa parks birthday. i actually wanted to echo what jaime was saying about the ice raids. i, i appreciate it that the agency is taking it seriously and seem to respond well to the rumors that kind of came up out of nowhere. i also think that as you know, we're always trying to build trust in the agency. i know you all are trying to build trust in the agency. i agree having an information campaign about people's rights and what they can expect on transit what mta will and won't do in regards to ice and also

how people can respond if they see ice i think could go a long way. chicago recently and the cta in chicago recently started a similar campaign that i think has been very successful in educating chicagoans about their rights and getting them ready to prepare in case rates like this do start to happen. so thanks for your dedication on that and i happy to work together on getting the word out about all of that. >> thank you. >> see no further speakers in the room. we do have one accommodation request. >> speaker you've been unmuted. >> you have two minutes. thank you. this is bob fine, the president of save muni. >> i have a can you hear me? >> yes, go ahead. thank you. julie just a couple of things. first of all for the speed cameras, i understand that

there is a signage requirement that you have to put up signs a block in advance. is that true and will you be doing that implement the speed camera program? >> so that's question number one. question number two, although you didn't report on it, we all know that there were some service cuts that were made on february 1st. and i'm just curious because i did not see a public hearing prior to those service cuts or an action by the mta board of directors to approve them. so i wonder although you're not required to respond to these comments what you might be able to make a short response. >> thank you. thank you. no other callers i would like to just briefly respond to mr.

fine dome's questions. i know that we are this is not a question and answer period and for public comment and i but i do appreciate mr. pyne dome's questions and unless thank you for the sfm t board reviewed the changes that we implemented february 1st at the november 19th meeting it was brought as an information item because of the small scale of the changes as we contemplate larger changes that have title six requirements and other regulatory requirements, the s.f. mta board would would take action to approve for example any service equity analysis that resulted as a result of

those changes. thank you. director kirschbaum secretary i know we will now close public comment for item six the directors report. colleagues do you have any questions? >> secretary director kahana thank you madam chair. >> julie thank you so much for your director's report for the end due to changes in the pilot program i just had a question to better understand from members of the public to also understand how are we evaluating the impacts of the pilot program on businesses and considering that they're part of the study. i just wanted to see if you could shed some more light on that piece of the pilot. >> yes, we i did have an opportunity to meet with some of the sunset outer sunset

merchants and mayor murray on friday. so i received some initial feedback and we're also going to do a site meeting next week . in addition, we received frankly an unexpected volume of comments which is in part why i included it in the directors report. so the public that had taken the time to reach out to us and express concerns knows that it was a four day pilot and we have returned to our more typical operations so we will be collecting feedback both from the supervisors that managed the pilot and the operators as well as looking at those public comments and then doing that that meeting on site

. now i just want to appreciate just the thought partnership that there was with all the different folks on the ground to get this pilot going and to evaluate it. i also appreciate that it was a cost effective method to to test out some things. so i just want to hopefully all the feedback that you're getting is generating a lot of good information that we could apply in some way. so just you know really want to thank the team for their effort in just doing that and being responsive to the community and taking that all in because it's nice to hear that there was a volume of response which means there's a lot for us to to work with. >> i also wanted to thank you for giving us and opening up the space to talk about the rumor on the ice raid. as you know, i reached out to you and you reached out to me. so thank you so much for doing that. this rumor caused extreme chaos and concern in the community. i was flooded with with messages from folks just really concerned about what was happening.

so i just want to thank all the community members for being alert and creating a a way for us to communicate with one another. i also want to commend you julie and the team and brett as well for doing all that you could to really get to the bottom of it. i know that you all together with you know all the different folks on the team looking through just hours of safety video just to make sure that we were actually we can get to the to the root of the matter and so i it was a lot of work to the team put in to just investigate this claim and all the different support that we also got from our sister agencies to particularly oca and just making sure that this was something that we were being responsive about. so just huge kudos to you julie and how you and the team handled it. you know you're absolutely right. this did cause a lot of fear in the immigrant community in particular. and right now there the fears

heightened. many folks are electing not to go out and that is very scary especially knowing that a lot of our ridership our members from the immigrant community and so you know, i do wonder what we are doing to restore trust in our ridership and ensure that we're creating a safe space for transit riders. i know we have some limiting things that that you know, we have to act with and what's happening in the city. but that said like there are a lot of things that are in our wheelhouse that we could do right? so things like internal trainings and messaging we heard that in public comment just earlier a moment ago. know your rights messaging on our busses perhaps the way we are adjusting enforcement. so i just wanted to offer up the space for you julie to give us some insights on how you and the team are thinking about making those adjustments so that folks know that yes we are enforcing on fares but you're also not we're not collaborating with ice like if you can give us just some

insights on what you and the team are doing to to get that message across to our ridership . >> yes. so it is very much a work in progress trying trying to balance the the needs of our agency with the kind of broader city effort to stand up resources to address the administrative and other challenges that this topic brings. we did disseminate and then reinforce information to all of our staff so that they know what to expect in this situation. we also used these false reports as an opportunity to strengthen our communications systems so you know, with the police department, with the

city administrator's office, with the rapid response network that is supporting people across the city, we have also started to look at other transit agencies and what kind of messaging they're putting on their vehicles that we can take and that we can learn from. and it would be very helpful to know if if the board also agrees that a no your rights campaign on the vehicles would be useful. we're very interested in get a training up and running for our staff. as you know we now every operator previously had one day of refresher and safety training. through brent's leadership we have changed that to a three day training. so it allows us to go deeper on topics like racial equity, like de-escalation.

and i very much see this as an opportunity but i also want to give the city's department of immigration affairs and a little bit of time to deal with what is essentially a crisis space right now in order to support us. we're also very cognizant of the the challenges that our fare inspectors can can can play when on board. it is part of why they have very extensive de-escalation and communication and and safety training. but we're also talking at their safety briefings about what people are feeling right now and what people are going through and trying to make sure that they have the resources that they need to retain the

authority that they need in order to be able to do a fair inspection but to to minimize any confusion or we want them to be they are our fare inspectors are a safety resource to our customers and to our operators and we want to make sure that all of our customers feel that can recognize them and can understand their role and distinguish their role from you know, for example, an ice officer so that's where we're right now kind of working through a lot of different angles of this work and would appreciate any feedback that the board has. >> and just so it's perfectly i for 1 a.m. in favor of a no your rights campaign on our busses and i think that makes complete sense it it makes absolute sense to have those

resources available for folks that we know can access and will access them right and so seeing that in a system that they interact with daily and use to get from point a to point b and seeing that we're taking the care and the time to actually, you know, care about our ridership in that way and support our ridership in that way i think will go a long way for folks. so i for one completely endorse that. >> i do think that we should do that. um, i of course defer to you julie and the team in terms of how to best work with our sister agencies to make sure it's a coordinated effort. but i do appreciate you're also saying we need to make sure that our enforcement officers and our enforcement tools are distinguished from those of ice because i think that's where a lot of the confusion and anxiety is coming from. so i think it's it's really great that you're considering those things and that you're figuring out ways to apply them

. i would also certainly encourage you to be innovative . yes, it's it's nice to look at what our other agencies are doing nationally and replicate some of the things that they're doing. but we also could play a leading role in that too, right? so fear not to play that role. please do that and i highly encourage the team to consider how to be leaders in transit on this particular topic. >> thank you. thank you. director kahana art director henderson thank you chair. >> i just julie had a couple of questions about all-star weekend and lunar new year weekend in terms of the advertisement of the free service systemwide will the machines, the card readers or whatever they're called will they be turned off so that people can't accidentally tap and pay or can you do that?

>> yes, they will be turned over and so no payment will be acceptable on during that um during that weekend yes in previous years we were looking for an elaborate like bag or something to put over the clipper machines and our maintenance team once they understood the problem so that they can actually disable the the fare payment. so even if somebody tags they will not be charged. >> okay. all right. and then they'll remember to turn them back on. yeah, very good. thank you for paying your fares. >> very good. um, and then my other question was just around any special arrangements? well actually have a question and then a comment. do you have any special arrangements with bart because i know that because there are the um events in oakland and then the big events are in

san francisco. is there any anything special that you had to arrange to make sure that um that service to the coliseum that you know basically that the timing is aligned so that people aren't you know, sort of missing bart because i know that there was this recent sort of coordinated effort to make sure that we can actually see if we're getting off the bart train, we can see what muni busses or trains are nearby. and so i just i'm wondering if there's anything special you had to do to make sure that we are prepared for what could be a lot more people on the trains than than usual. >> yes, we have shared and and and coordinated on our service plans. bart will be running extra service as well to support the events. there are at least two events at the at the coliseum and as you as you your question

indicates moving people around from the coliseum from the parade, from the union square hotels to the chase center it is a lot of moving parts. we also have a very close connection at the control center level so if we see anything unusual or through our monitoring of social media or through the 311 system, we also share that with bart's control center so that we're nimble and can respond in a coordinated way. >> that's that's great. that's good to hear. and then i think my comment then is just that should there be any location changes especially because the parade kind of blocks off certain streets and access to streets, i would ask that there is um that you emphasize the communication of where the temporary bus stops might be because sometimes especially

downtown um it's easy to miss them and so then you end up missing the bus and you know because i think it's going to be raining i mean i feel like it rains every lunar new year parade we have but um, i just would ask that there's if the signs are, you know, eight and a half by 11 maybe they're 11 by 17 or something just to make sure that people see it and don't miss it because i think that there's going to be a lot of eyes on you know, the operations of the city. and so i would want to make it as easy as possible for people to choose um to choose transit versus trying to get caught up in the uh in a car. >> so thank you. thank you for that feedback. thank you very much for your report. i just want to briefly touch we've we've talked quite a bit about the the know your rights information often for for the public and i would like to just

elevate a couple of things that i heard about having printed material on on our system i also think that that would be a good idea in multiple languages and and i appreciate you showing us the page on our website and i'd like to ask if that could go up again just to point one thing out i just saw him walk out of the door. >> oh so but the slide deck should be on the computer. >> i'm so sorry that you know your rights. >> the city's website this is what is known as murphy's law correct.

thank you very much. >> hopefully this doesn't turn out to be too small of a point but just for members of the public and advocates to know that there at the top right is a dropdown where people can select the language that the page is viewed in and since this is necessarily meant for people who may not be english language speakers that opportunity to see this information in multiple

languages i believe spanish tagalog, mandarin, cantonese, vietnamese and maybe others so i. i just thought it might be worthwhile to to point that out and and then i also wanted to ask about the vendor error that caused a shutdown of our of our systems briefly and and find out a little bit more about any other negative consequences was there any damage to any of our infrastructure as a result of that? so the gas the halon gas was emitted into the into the area and what are the yeah, thank you thank you for that question the halon gas was emitted and the entire facility safely

evacuated. we then partnered with the fire department and did not return to the facility until it was safe to do so. the the system worked and what i mean by that is a lot of the electronic systems that shut down shut down by design. so i do not believe that there was any permanent damage and we learned quite a bit from this unexpected exercise but it was challenging in real time because this is a very old facility. it's a very old system. we have not had, you know, any any fire safety issues and so it was not it was not well documented how all of these systems were linked.

so it was in it was impactful. but quickly resolved without major infrastructure impacts. thank you very much. and yeah, i'm glad it was it was resolved. i think many writers you know remember more frequent shutdowns in our tunnel system in in years past. i think particularly before we started implementing our fix it week programs that have reduced those outages by a significant amount i you know and whenever something like this happens we are asking for the public's understanding and patience and and i'm i'm glad to hear that at least it wasn't a learning opportunity and a a good view into the future where

we have upgraded some of these aging infrastructure pieces. so thank you very much for including that in the report. i think it's very important to circle back on things that have gone awry. are there any other comments from my colleagues or. >> all right with that i will close this item. secretary silva, please call the next item places you want item number seven the citizens advisory council report we have no report. >> and moving on to item number eight new our unfinished business by board members directors are there any new or unfinished business? >> director hemminger thank you madam chair. i'm referring in these remarks to the vision zero committee

that former cherry can created and it chewed up a good part of last year in hearings and discussion. but i think we never really brought it to a conclusion before director he can took up employment elsewhere so i'm wondering if we can just circle the wagons with the staff who participated in that effort and figure out some way of bringing it to the board for us to approve or reject amend as we see fit. thank you. any one else will now open public comment. members of the public wishing to comment we'll have two minutes each. there will be a warning sound at 30s and a time when the time

is up. >> i have no speaker cards. any speakers can come to the podium. >> good afternoon commissioners. my name is paul wormer and i'm usually a climate nag and so this is a chance for me to do a climate snag here. one of the big things in the climate action plan and with mr. warmer is this related? >> yes it is, yes. one of the things that is highlighted in the climate action plan is mode shift and from mode shift to happen we need excellent transit and one of the areas where transit has not made a lot of progress is in the interior layout of the busses. my wife uses a mobility scooter frequently. she cannot get on frequently when she cannot get off the bus is delayed for a significant time is people with walkers and baby carriages have to

shift themselves around so someone can get off or on. as you were looking at new busses i urge you looking at how your redesign of the interior of the bus so it's not designed to support the healthy commuter going town down with a briefcase or in our backpack. but it sort of supports the daily rounds that the busses need to support if we're going to get mode shift so that parents with strollers and seniors with walkers, mobility impaired people with wheelchairs, people who are shopping, people who are taking luggage to go to the airport or maybe to catch the amtrak bus across the bay to catch the train so that it provides services to those people. right now it really doesn't and as you bring on new busses looking at our design the interior to improve flow is really important. >> thank you.

thank you mr.. wormer that that is a comment that's related i believe to a later agenda item. >> so we will be opening comment for that again any other c no speakers in the room and no accommodations. >> we'll now close public comment. secretary sylvia please call the next item places you on item number nine general public comment. members of the public may address the board of directors on matters that are within the board's jurisdiction and are not on today's calendar. >> and i'd just like to reiterate in light of just that it seems like a little confusion this will this item is about items that are issues that are not later on the agenda. >> very good members of public will have two minutes to speak . there will be a warning sound at 30s and a chime on the time is up. >> i do have one speaker card for barry toronto good good

afternoon again. i don't always have opportunity to come in here and speak. i can afford it but i want to congratulate janet karloff on her election to the chair. you'll do a great job next lombard and presidio have ohv lanes you are supposed to have an evaluation and update on the pilot program because that was a pilot program but i haven't heard we haven't heard anything from staff so i think it'd be great to hear from staff about how it's working and how it saves bus time or not. next is the speed safety cameras. i did not write any thank you email but justin hong who took over the program from shannon is doing a great job. you couldn't have picked a better person to run this. the safety enforcement camera program. >> so i want to shout out for thanking him for doing the presentation to a bunch of cab

drivers and having the presentation geared toward us and done a great job. next i had a rather unpleasant experience with scott edwards who took over from james lee. james lee retired. he deserves his retirement but you lost a great employee who came up with solutions rather than infighting. so there are there are cars illegally parked, particularly black suvs on terry francis boulevard before the end of games and concerts. >> i said if you're going to ticket cab from double parking at least you could do is is is is ticket or have moved the black suv is that are soliciting at the curb so i urged i urge you to work with him to stop the illegal parking followed near the end of games there's concerts that park on cherry parents will go out please last but not least i went to a a some a jewish seminar about relationships waymo you you you got to get the state to allow you to do some enforcing of or

regulations on waymo because because more and more waymo's means less interaction with people the driver doesn't just drive the vehicle but also interacts with the with the with the people in the backseat and that's an important part of society. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker i'm seeing none. let me just double check. i did have one request for accommodations if he's in speaker you've been unmuted. >> this is item nine general public comment. >> you have two minutes. thank you. this is bob feigenbaum. i have the general comment i'd like to make and that is if you are looking at the safe mta operating budget you'll see

that roughly 75% of the cost goes to personnel and that means that if there are going to be any significant savings that personnel have to be cut. we're looking at and i'll have later comments on item number 12 but in whenever you make service cut you are cutting personnel in the form of the operators and maybe the mechanic to work on the vehicles. however, those are the wrong kinds of cuts to be making. thank you very much and i'll have further comment on number 12. >> thank you. >> no further speakers. we will now close public comment on item nine. >> second to yourself a place called the next item directors that places you on item ten the

consent calendar. these items are considered to be routine and will be acted upon by a single vote unless a member of the board or public wishes to consider an item separately for all speakers providing public comment please identify which i don't know you're speaking to item 10.1 requesting the comptroller to alert funds and to draw warrants against such funds available or will be available in payment of the listed claims in the agenda items a and b that concludes your consent calendar. >> we will now open public comment for item ten the consent calendar i'm seeing no speakers in the room and no accommodations directors any may i please have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar? i move that item second secretary silva please call the roll on the motion to approve the consent calendar director hemminger i hemminger i director henderson henderson i director kinsey i nci director

carina coordinator tarlov i tarlov i thank you the consent calendar is approved secretary silva please call the next item places you on item number 11 amending the transportation code division to article 1100 section 1113 s1b to eliminate the requirement that taxis submit a valid and current brake certificate issued by an official inspection station certified by the state of california during inspections and imposes a requirement that taxis undergo a 19 point inspection as part of the regular inspection process. this item is being reheard after approval on the consent calendar by the board at the january 21st hearing pursuant to a request from a member of the public to remove the item from the consent calendar made in writing on january 19th. >> good afternoon. i'm philip crane on the

enforcement and legal affairs with taxis access and mobility services and then the item before you today is a slight revision in the taxi rules currently the rule is that you need to submit a valid brake certificate which is no longer offered by the state of california. so the proposal is to remove that requirement and change it to a 19 point inspection which is an industry standard. we are not proposing any change to the cadence of inspections typically taxis are inspected every year older vehicles and higher mileage vehicles are inspected every six months and inspections are conducted by our partners at san francisco international airport. they're not capable of doing any brake inspections. so we've always relied upon the brake certificate due to state change in state law, the brake certificate program was ended and was combined into a larger program called the vehicle safety systems inspection vci, which is meant to inspect a vehicle one time before returning a salvage vehicle back to the road. >> so the proposal is to move

to a 19 point inspection. as i mentioned, it's an industry standard. other modes that use this or tcp or limos taxis, uber and lyft so this type of inspection is available all over the state so permittees will be able to shop around for different shops for different prices and as i mentioned there is kind of a price difference the visa is based upon our phone calls is about $300. the old brake certificate was about $200 and the 19 point is about $50 and of course you can shop around some charge more, some charge a little bit less and with that that is the proposal and i'm available for any questions. thank you. directors, are there any clarifying questions? >> i all right. i'd like to open this for public comment. members of the public wishing to provide comment will have

two minutes each. there will be a warning sound at 30s and then a chime when the time is up. i do have two speaker cards barry toronto and mark gruber. >> good afternoon. i want to thank you very much for bringing this item back as our regular agenda item. i've never seen it done before but you know being a new as a chair i understand people make mistakes but i appreciate you rectifying it and representing the simpsons taxi workers alliance this doesn't impact taxi drivers and i hope you read our email about this issue first i want to make that that the item only this one door it says door so under the 19 point so they only have to have one working door well i'm being a little joking about that but it's still it's kind of a sloppy list then because a lot of it's duplicated because the g-2 does a lot of this and g2 is a regulatory agency that's

more accountable to the city and to the citizens just san francisco and the visitors. so having us go to somebody who may not have the same care as g2 do for the same items is not appropriate when it's already been inspect we already will be inspected by the g2 and you're paying $57 for that so and then the the next thing it says that that g2 needs a lift. how about using uber instead? well i'm joking but anyway the thing is though is that inspections have been done in the past without using a lift so i don't understand. i think we'd be willing to pay a little bit extra money to have all those items that are not done already by g2, done by g2 and i think it's kind of redundant. it could take the cab out of service and it's an unnecessary expense and to say is going to

cost less who knows? there are a lot of irreparable mechanics out there even if their license by the state. so i urge you to have them go back and maybe contract with a reputable auto repair tha

will do this and be accountable to the city and to the drivers and to our passengers. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker use the overhead camera. yes, go ahead. >> you can place a thank you. thank you, chair our board members marc bloomberg, thanks again for putting this back on your agenda. the first thing you should know is that this was done a very little notice to the industry. there was one outreach meeting called on short notice and it was two days before this actually appeared on your consent calendar. so in other words there was no meaningful outreach to the

industry before this was already headed to you as a consent item of of the night. and let me show you this can you put that on? so of the 19 items in this unnecessary inspection, all but three are already on the to use inspection list. >> the three items are windshield wipers, pedometer and muffler and two you can easily do that as far as brake inspections go, it's not true that they have to be done on a lift as staff has stated it's never been done that way. i've done many, many brake inspections and they they do there are multiple parts of it but basically when they inspect the brake pads they simply get down with a flashlight under the car and they and and they look to see that they are that

they're good. so it's a very short inspection. nothing that the two you can't do also did you know that the 19 point inspection that uber and lyft are required to do they can do that virtually the driver walks around the car with a video shooting a video from his cell phone and some mechanic in timbuktu or somewhere approves it. and so when they do the the virtual brake inspection i mean do they put it on a virtual lift? it's crazy. so the gti you can do this if they can't any mechanic can do it. thank you. any other speakers see none. and we have no accommodations. thank you. directors, are there any clarifying questions?

>> oh, director kahana, thank you so much for bringing this item back and thank you so much for the taxi community for raising this issue. i did have a question about the public comment. just wanted to understand it and give you an opportunity to clarify how inspections are comparing the 19 point inspection, how that compares to the inspections that are currently on the books for rideshares like is that here the one in denver? it seems like one is on virtually and one is done has to be done in person and for all those 19 points and i just wanted to see if you could amplify that a little bit more if you have context for that. i'm not aware of of tenses how they how they inspect the way that we envision this program is that would be a form that would be need to be brought to the mechanic who would inspect the brakes as a public comment mentioned there is a little bit

of overlap but the g-2, the ground transportation unit sfo isn't capable of conducting the brake inspections and so right now are many of our taxes are are part of a pilot program correct that we're folks can they're they're part of this i forget with help me out here pilot the pilot program yes there we go yeah third party pilot there thank you so much. >> the third party pilot program and so just just trying to see if there is if we put some thought into just creating some safety standards for all the vehicles that are part of that program. and so that would include our taxis but also some of the the tnc season just to see if there's like some workstream to to think about that and if you could speak to that well so there's the tnc are not participating so it's basically an uber passenger who books through uber and a taxi comes to pick you up so there is a handoff and once it's handed off to the taxi it's a taxi

trip so it's not completed by a tnc or an uber is completed by a taxi vehicle so we don't involve ourselves with the tnc inspections. >> this is only about taxi vehicles. all right. but we are i guess encouraging our writers to also participate in that third party program. right. and so in some ways i assume that we're trying to create some standards for our the experience of of some of our writers. right. and to create safety standards essentially. >> yeah. hi. good afternoon. kate torin, director of taxis access and mobility services and i'm here to support phil with this item and yeah to reiterate it, safety is critical for us. >> it's number one super important which is why we're before you today for the brake inspection and again just to reiterate what phil has said with our pilot where we do

allow uber passengers who request their trips of uber but the taxi is the closest vehicle to them. there's a handoff and so again that trip is provided on a taxi and so our concern is with taxis, the taxi inspections and the again breaks are a critical component in city any safety inspection and so the 99 point inspection which is an industry standard for uber and lyft again as phil mentioned is a known type of inspection i'm not sure but a virtual type of inspection that was mentioned again we don't enforce on the uber and lyft side as you know. but our concern is that taxis continue to have a brake inspection and the because the state program was eliminated we

are coming to you to for this amendment the transportation code specifically states a brake certificate inspection again which is no longer a thing. it is a defunct program and of course our team is sensitive to the costs for the industry and the 19 point inspection that includes the brake a brake inspection component is the best option an alternative we did not want to require the the new state inspection program which is more than the taxi industry needs because it's built for salvaged vehicles and again i'm just amplifying what what phil's saying this is all very helpful. thank you so much for that. and i guess like the point that i'm trying to chase is my hope is that if we do have cars that are circulating out there, they're providing rides to

passengers that there is a sort of standard safety standard i guess that we're trying to chase and the we're trying to support that to encourage folks to in many ways to adhere to those safety standards. absolutely. >> the critical concern for us and that's why we're here before you today. >> so i guess my follow up question though is considering that this is going to be a car is going to be costly for our our taxi operators if what we're doing i guess to like is there a soft launch? is there like a you know, socialize in this or like i just want to understand how just to say again it is a cost savings so the brake certificate that was required that the which is again defunct now that costs on average $200 and so the 19 point inspection which we are using to replace

that defunct brakes certificate program is on average about $50. so it is a cost savings to the taxi industry if we if we start getting a sense that it's actually more expensive than what we we anticipated is going to be, is there i just want to underscore i would just say is the cost of doing business i don't think anybody wants to be driving around an individual car or a car for hire without the assurance of knowing the brakes have been inspected and they are operating a safe vehicle. >> so i think it is in everyone's best interest to have this done and just to say i know the desires to have the ground transportation unit that conducts taxi inspections out at sfo to just add into their inspection program but that is not add in the break piece of this but that is not doable from their perspective. >> so i completely agree that i

think safety is first and foremost the standard and that's what we should be chasing. but i do want to just offer some grace to those that are in the taxi community that are feeling like this is like very new to them or they're feeling it's going to be an adjustment and that we make some effort to just work with them and help them through this and that's that's pretty much it. but i do understand the need for this. i do understand why this is coming before us. i do understand why this is critical. so i just appreciate you both for for working on this and trying to figure out how to standardize this. >> thank you and thank you to phil who's the lead on this. thank you. director henderson, i just want just a question to help me understand the alternative. so what so today if we don't the state law no longer exists but we're but because we need to have a brake inspection the alternative would be for an entity that doesn't have the

capacity to do it to perform like what is the if we say no then what's the other option for us to approve or to for us to have happen? >> sure. yeah the so the brake program was was ended it was rolled up into vsi the large one time inspection so that was an alternative that we considered but as kate mentioned that's $300 for some of these vehicles that would be twice a year so that's $600 whereas the old brake certificate was about to roughly $200. there is no other alternative other than vsi or the 19 point out there. now the 19 point isn't an official program but it's a it's an industry standard. you could probably find it in any place in california. >> got it. okay. thank you that that's helpful. thank you so much. i so kind of along those lines i just want to be sure that i understand the state law

and common sense require that we as the regulator of the taxi industry ensure that the vehicles are safe to operate and brakes are clear to everyone that that is a critical component. and so that but the opportunity to get a brake certificate is no longer available through the state. >> am i understanding that correctly? >> yes, that is correct and i and i don't think that there's any disagreement that safety is a priori pretty but the disagreement seems to lie with whether the g-2 inspection is sufficient to ensure safety

and and you know i just as a member of the public knowing that we do not regulate as an agency uber and lyft, i would love to know if if this virtual inspection is is permitted by whoever does regulate them because it doesn't seem adequate to me but that that being said i'd just like to understand with the g2 inspection is it the case that g2 can't or won't provide us with the assurance that the brakes are operating to a safety standard that's acceptable to us as the regulator of the taxi industry? >> well what i would say can't in to they are a colleague

agency who work with us to enforce our requirements as the regulator. they also inspect many other vehicles and i think there might be a time constraint because they do inspect limos who visit sfo so they they they do inspect many vehicles. i think they inspect the busses as well. >> so there is a time constraint to adding additional components to their their inspection. >> is there a possibility in the future if we discover that this is indeed a significant cost or or or or additional work to get another inspection? i i'm sympathetic to that. you know, finding a reliable mechanic who will not you know ,look for opportunities to charge you. that was in one of the letters that we received and you know,

making sure you have a good value as as a business owner is is do you think there's the opportunity in the future to try to roll it into one because i am sympathetic that it would be it would be terrific for us to be able to you know, enhance the opportunity for our taxi partners to to provide a safe service. i, i did ask about that possibility of our colleagues down there and they don't think they have the capability. like i said, it's the timing and then also the ability to to do that inspection. >> so i yes so i'd just like to

just say that i feel like it's it's very important for us as directors to ensure the safety of the public insofar as it's in our purview to do so. and i would feel very uncomfortable where there to be an accident that was a result of insufficient uh oversight of this very critical piece if if it resulted from our uh our decision today. so are there any other comments ? all right. uh, i'd like to now ask for a motion in a second on the ongoing second secretary sylvia please call the roll on the motion to approve director hemminger hemminger i director

henderson henderson i director lindsey i in the director because you know i you know i charter loaf i tarlov i think you that item is approved thank you secretary sylvia please call the next item places you on item number 12 presentation and discussion regarding proposals for summer 2025 service cuts directors are there any clarifying questions ? >> presentation first. oh pardon. >> good afternoon directors. sharon kennedy chief planning and implementation officer here at muni and we'd be glad to jump straight to a questions but before we do that well we'll walk you through a few slides. >> i also have kate mckenzie here who what's that? >> you should have seen your face. i said don't don't play but this is great. so i also got kate mccarthy here she is our manager of outreach and engagement and will be helping flip

through the slides. so we are here today to talk through process and timeline related to addressing some budget issues in the second year of our currently adopted two year operating budget. i obviously am not brief. i am not going to get into the deep details of of the budget issues themselves. she will be coming to you i understand at the next board meeting. but you know transit has a longer lead time than a lot of other issues in mta so we wanted to get in front of you as quick as we could and walk through kind of what we're thinking timeline process and when you'll be seeing my shining face again. so with that before we get into the fun, i just wanted to note some some some some really great things about about muni of course most of you already know this but we carry about half the riders in the entire nine county region transit

riders about 500,000 riders a day ride our service if you add up bart sam trans ac transit go to gate caltrain all together they don't even equal 500,000 riders a day. so we are a linchpins to the economic recovery of the region as well as of course environmental sustainability. so and and another one i want to point out and here is a 60% of all regional trips either starter and in san francisco so very important cog in how the region itself works. to that end we've been spending a lot of time over the last few years focusing on projects and programs that we know will increase ridership. we have been really using the customer experience as our northstar and making these our decisions but you know, brought forward programs and projects including expansion of trans only lanes working on both safety and security at

and cleanliness at our stops as well as you know on our rolling stock and of course doing some very innovative things on the maintenance side with things like fix that week and making sure we get out there and fix things before they break. >> of course riders are noticing and you see a great trend continuing upward. we're about 75% recovered. this is december of this year compared to december of 2019 and so we're about 75% on a weekday. we covered in about a 90% on on the weekend and like i said, around 500,000 riders a day. unfortunately our financial trends are not tracking with those ridership numbers and there are some specific ones and we will get much more into this. but parking revenue as well as the general fund coming in lower than what we had expected with our budget that you all

approved and adopted just just 6 or 7 months ago because of this, you know, we kind of have a multilayered you know, financial situation. of course there is the 2026 fiscal cliff which we've been talking about and projecting here in front of this body for quite a while so much so that we've formed a muni fund, a working group with our friends in the comptroller's office and a number of major stakeholders throughout the city. we are anticipating getting there report in the march timeframe and you know that will address hopefully the 320 or so million dollar a year shortfall we see coming after 2026 when the covid federal covid relief money runs out there is unfortunately and has recently come to light a near term problem that amounts about $50 million in the second year of our existing budget our current budget the f y 25 which

starts in july of this year. so it is rapidly approaching and that's why i'm here today. so we have been asked as part of that $50 million shortfall to identify $50 million in muni muni cuts. you know that $50 million equates to about 4% of the service that you see on the street right now. we do not obviously want to make these cuts. these are going to be painful. these are going to be this is the wrong obviously the wrong time if we look at ridership trends and ridership recovery and just overall economic recovery, this is not the time obviously to be cutting service. we do not want to be doing this but the budget issues are real and you know, i think doing nothing would be far worse than than doing something so we're here to talk through what that something is short a very short timeframe for outreach and once again that's why i'm here

today. we're hoping for a 6 to 8 week outreach window. one will then be returning to you all for kind of final direction and decisions in the late march or early april timeframe because it takes about two and a half months once those final decisions are made are to put changes on the street. and as i said, our budget shortfall starts in july. so you know, we we do not have much time to play with because we have because we have such a short timeframe for outreach. we we thought we'd kick start kick start the process by developing some scenarios and and i'm going to walk through these scenarios here in a minute but you know, these scenarios are not meant as an either or or an all encompassing decision. you know, pick one, pick two or pick three. these are really designed as a way to showcase the level of of kind of financial distress this is causing when i say a 4% cut really doesn't sound you know,

off the top don't sound too bad. well, you'll see in these in these next few slides that oh 4% is very is very, very bad. additionally they're also each each of these three scenarios is designed around a different kind of policy. you know we have three policies that we've been trying to advance transit wise and and i'll talk about that more in a minute. but each one of these is trying to look at, you know, cuts from a different angle to try to get people to to talk through their values, to give us feedback not on yes or no cuts. but if we have to make cuts, you know, we really want you to prioritize this type of value as we're moving forward. so because of that, before i get into the specifics, i do want to point out the levers that we have from a transit transit service perspective to control costs. those are essentially frequency. so obviously the more frequent a service comes the more it costs because the more busses or trains you have to have out on the street to make that happen.

span so how long in the day do we offer this service? you know, if you're talking an 18 to 20 hour day even you know we have some obviously some lines that operate 24 hours a day that that that takes three operator shifts so span is another way to control cost and then finally the route itself. so how long does it take to go a to b the more secure this the route of course the more expensive it is because you need more more service out there to cover that that space as we've been making decisions and and i just wanted to get back to the values real quick over the last several years we've really tried to become value based and how we make service specifically service decisions as you know you know the city and by extension mta's goals have been improving equity supporting economic recovery and providing environmental stewardship. you'll see each one of these buckets that i'm about to talk through kind of address one of those three goals and then you know, kind of the overarching

umbrella over all of those goals we have found and during covid recovery is trust and how do you build trust with the ridership, how we feel like we've built a lot of trust with the ridership is scheduled in to resources. so if you recall you know pre-pandemic early we were missing a ton of service. we were we were only making about 90 to 93% service delivery meaning we were missing 600 trips a day. people lost trust in the fact that when we said there was a bus or train going to show up that a bus or train was going to show. so all three of these buckets that we're going to talk through the the founding principle is continuing to build trust with the ridership. we are trying to be as upfront and you know, realistic as possible by scheduling to what we know we can provide on a day in and day out basis. so that said, we've got these three scenarios once again i don't think any one of these scenarios are going to be a

whole in part what we what we bring back to you. they were designed to talk through trade offs to hear what people value as we look at at the system moving forward and and each one of them are different in a certain way. >> maxwell so first one is you'll see preserving high ridership routes. so obviously we are blessed in this in this region as having some major some corridors of major demand but also service levels to match that demand. and so this this particular bucket protects those major corridors but that means we have to get this this 4% cut from somewhere. and so in this in this particular scenario we're looking at cutting lines that have parallel service. so for instance, the 21 line you're a couple of blocks in the 514 you're a couple of blocks from haight street. the idea being you know, you can go to go to one of those

lines we don't touch the frequencies. instead we touch where the routes themselves go. the second option is the converse of that right or the alternative to that which is we we keep all connections exactly the same. if you fewer are going to a bus stop you'll still have that same bus stop that you did previously. but we would then reduce the frequencies on those major corridors that i just talked about specifically the five, the nine and the 28. we have rapid routes with frequent service underneath this proposal would would suspend the nine the 28 and the five frequent service. they would just be rapid corridors then the 14 and the 38. i want to note would maintain a frequent underlay there but those corridors just have have have so much so so much ridership that we cannot fully or we do not recommend fully suspending those those routes they would drop in frequency

basically doubling in frequency but but they would remain to still serve some of that some of that additional ridership. and then the third bucket is really looking specifically at equity and saying, you know, it's really a combination of the first two but but only looking at it from an equity lens and say look, we've have an equity strategy in the media equity strategy working group is working with us on looking at how to do these these kind of changes and this bucket says okay, we are not going to touch any lines that fall within the equity strategy and are identified as equity routes instead we will we will just look at routes that are that are outside of that definition . so those are those are the three buckets at a super high level. next steps right now we've got our website up as a 50 acres slash muni cuts. there's a survey on there there's ability to provide feedback and we'll be we'll be

obviously doing a ton of outreach the next two months or so before we come back to you all with hopefully a refined proposal. and then i do want to note once again that bri will be coming to our to all to next a board meeting to talk further about the budget in general. so with that that's that's that's where we're at and we'd love to take any questions or comments or concerns. thank you very much on and before we go to public comment are there any clarifying questions really quickly? >> director hemminger it's not clarifying. it's a little bit longer than that but the feel the permit me madam chair colleagues i think we need some more options here and even though shawn presents these three scenarios as choices, the choices are cut transit service cut transit service and cut transit service

and i think we need a couple options that don't cut transit service. >> so if you if you look at what we have in front of us, it is a cut scenario for transit and some kind of combination of savings and revenue enhancement on the non muni side of the house. is that right, john that's that's that's correct. >> okay. so my idea would be to add to additional scenarios for us to consider. one would be that we generate the 15 million bucks by dipping into our operating reserve. >> that's obviously not a first scenario or second scenario but it's it's available to us and we can thank our forbearers for putting that reserve together.

but it's $140 million and so a $15 million reduction would be about 10% which i think it can survive. so that's one idea trade off the service cut and instead use reserves. secondly, the other scenario i would suggest we consider again as i said a few minutes ago, the the current construction of these scenarios involves basically finding $35 million of savings to add up to 50. >> and my challenge to you, shawn, would probably be wherever you found that 35 go find 15 more and that's not going to be easy either. >> and i appreciate the fact that you're trying to get us thinking about scenarios and options and choices and perhaps combinations of

some of these ideas as well. but i think this analysis would be incomplete if we only looked at scenarios that cut service. i say that for that reason. i also say it because we're going to need partners at the ballot box in the not too distant future and that's for muni as well as caltrain and bart and everybody and their brother depending upon how the discussion of this regional measure fares and how much each agency is going to be on its own and i would be very leery of reducing service in the face of that and perhaps provoking a reaction from the public that is not going to help us pass those measures. so that is the thinking that i've done on it, madam chair.

and my hope is that we could add those two to the other three and evaluate and discuss with the public all five of them and then maybe do some mix and matching when we get near the finish line. >> thank you. >> thank you. director hemminger director lindsey thank you, madam chair. i tried tried to hold and throw out the public comment but i think i wanted to respond to you because i think we are being aggravated by the way the same thing which is that the meaning funding we do we think we have a variety of the plans here. >> we really heard a lot of public comment from recommend to me the idea of as director hemminger was saying really

tries to out and the voters and we wonder wondering if if this is the best way to do that in a climate where we're going to meet either most of our ideas in regard to entering or funding long term funding and that's the wrong light on us needing to pass something on the ballot. >> so we'll i just don't know if i appreciate it if you tell the policy conversation well, but i think i would agree if their timeline works out i would agree with your comment that there is another side the policy proposition of maybe doing some of the things that

kate laid out at least and ordering them. and so i think that that's i wanted to say on the actual scenarios themselves at the public comment but i did just want to reinforce the very thing that for me if i if i had to guess, i think that what he and i have coming from in our role as muni funding would go but for some private channel fare i, i bet you molly so at thank you director lindsay director henderson yes so maybe i do have something that's more clarifying in this um deep um uh i remember well maybe two questions i remember since i've been here a little over a year we talked about the 21 before

and so the what you proposed is that making permanent what we did before or is this is in addition to or on top of that the change i can't remember what it was but i know the 21 came well yeah yeah as we were restoring service back to covid the 21 was one of the last lines we put back and it's operating now although it does end at market instead of going all the way down town. but this would mean that there's no 21 at all that's what that's what of these one of the things we're trying to talk through so one of the comments that we got one of the messages that we got in over email was just speaking to um removing that line and i guess particularly because there's you know we are blessed with the hills and so there some feedback that we got about not taking that away because it's it helped that line helps to traverse the steepness of the hills and so my question is

when you're proposing these service cuts is one of the variables that you take into consideration the topography or the you know, sort of how people might be able to get up and down the hills? >> yeah, i mean those are the exact questions and comments that we want that we want back from people is the value is you know i want to maintain my hill service and luckily that you know a lot of those comments also had some yes you know give and take for it. it wasn't like no, you can't take 21. it's like well how about you combine it with the six and maybe you could save busses that way and those are exactly the kind of comments that we're looking for on making these tradeoffs and kind of understanding where people are okay with those different different policies. >> thank you. that's that's a chair. thank you, director henderson director kirschbaum did you want to address director hemminger um that only so shaun doesn't have to i think it's

it's very helpful feedback and i appreciate the board's patience while we run concurrently we wanted to have a maximum amount of time to get feedback on on summer service cuts because it takes about four months to build the schedules and we have to make decisions in fairly short order on operator hiring. so there's a lot of lead time items associated with service cuts. i, i also while we were trying to at the staff level find a balanced approach so you notice we're not bringing you $50 million of service cuts. we're bringing you 15. i also appreciate the feedback that you'd like to see some options that don't don't put

our rider needs on the table at all. so we will absolutely develop a scenario that looks at the reserve. we will also continue you to scrub all of our expenditures. we are not quite yet even at a $35 million expenditure savings program which is in part why we did not bring the six month update to you at this meeting. so we're continuing to try to develop a robust proposals but we will bring at least two scenarios that do not look at service reductions and look at other tradeoffs like spending our reserves or a portion of our reserves now as well as continuing to vet these proposals. i also appreciate a lot of our

community partners who have also been willing to live in this sort of shared space while focusing and i think you're going to hear a lot of folks today talk about how devastating service cuts would be. they have also been helpful in sharing more nuanced feedback on the proposals themselves. so in case we do find ourselves needing to pursue the summer service cuts so this is a challenging time and i appreciate how everybody's come together to help us. thank you. just a quick question about what you just said so if i understood correctly we're planning for what would be the worst case scenario but if if say we won the lottery and gets 15 to $15 million, would would we be able to reverse service

cuts in as nimbly as or once we head down a road of building schedules? >> is there a point of no return? thank you for that question. i do think we need to make a decision on this ideally, you know, by the first if not the second meeting in march because we are achieving we would be achieving these savings by reducing our operator hiring and if we waited until say july to solve for the funding gap we would already have built the schedules that reflected the cuts and our staffing levels would have been adjusted down also to reflect the summer service cuts. so we we have a small window of

time to to make this decision. but you know, we still have, you know, several weeks to do so and we will make sure at the next meeting we bring the choices that you all are requesting. >> thank you. director kena thank you chair. i was with director hemminger on this one that i would love to explore scenarios where we're not cutting muni service . i think that's you know, we're still we brought back a lot of lines on post pandemic and we're still trying to assess what the ridership looking like and we're starting to to grow the ridership right and i, i wonder what the cuts will do to that momentum and we definitely don't want to regress. right. and so i know it's a tough decision and i know that the tradeoffs aren't great either. and so i, i just want to speak in favor of exploring additional revenue sources for

that 50 million gap that we're trying to fill. a couple of clarifying questions though. i with the outreach and engagement that we propose to do if the timeline to make a decision to land this plane is the first or second meeting in march. i'm just trying to get a sense of we already have a lot of working groups and different folks that we can outreach to and just want to understand like how are we getting this in front of the cac? how are we getting this in front of the equity group the muni funding working group is is something that they also endorse just trying to get a better sense of that. >> yeah. yeah. so i guess i would say on the on the set meetings yes so our muni equity strategy workgroup has already been engaged with this material and we are holding another couple of meetings with them over the next month to work further through it and we have also we're meeting with the cac i think it's next week of this

thursday this week talking with the cac about about these different buckets and scenarios and we've we've talked and gone over in detail with our operator union the changes as well as in a less detail but with all of the unions that are at mta so and we've done we did a whole all staff related just to these these changes that we've talked with our our staff about these these specific changes as well. so we are reaching out to as many as many groups as we can. we've also asked our groups if they want us to come present over the next month so our reaching out there will be do is a pop up open houses at major transit stops and things to talk with riders so yeah we've got a multipronged outreach effort and this is a quick turnaround so they're just curious how what efficient ways are you looking at to gather all the feedback that you need to land a recommendation?

and so things like the feedback that director henderson was noting like the hills you know that's going to be something to consider like how are we engaging the folks that you know, we can assume are going to have some challenges but what you need to know for certainty like there are going to be challenges for those communities. >> sure. and do you want to you want to address that? sure. thank you for the question. we're making sure that we're able to have feedback in four languages. so on our website right now if you go to sfm taken size muni gets the feedback form is in english, spanish, chinese and filipino and will be doing outreach to we've targeted specific groups that represent various stakeholders that rely more heavily on muni you know we have our muni service equity strategy there's a set of demographics that we use to identify folks who are more reliant on transit and so we're targeting groups that work with those audiences to make sure that we can present with them

and get their feedback identifying locations where we can intercept riders who would be disproportionately impacted. so we're trying to do as robust as possible outreach as we can with a very short window. right. and that's that's what concern me. we have a really short window, right? and we want to get really rich feedback and we also want to land the plane with this with this body here. >> so there's a lot of constraints that are coming together. and so i you know, i'm thinking about these additional scenarios and we're asking you to like hook up as well. how easy can would it be to plug those into the original engagement process? well, i mean i will defer to director kirschbaum on the specifics but you know, i, i think that if you're going to use that we're not i don't vision ask you the general public if we should use our you know our reserves that's that's

the decision of this board so i don't don't plan to roll that into the outreach that work that we're asking the public and julie, aside from using our reserves, what other tradeoffs did we consider in terms of if not transit then options that we're just not pursuing i if possible i'd prefer to defer that until the 18th but we are looking at a host of strategies. we're looking at every contract. we're looking at all of our positions. we are looking at any capital projects that could potentially be deferred or redefined to bring you choices. we're also looking at a package of parking optimization which is something that we've shared with the muni funding working group. we already we have a number

we've had we've seen success in the investment we've made in fare inspectors a modest increase in hiring has allowed us to optimize size and double our inspections combined with the public information campaign our our bus and our train revenue is on target so we hope to do something similar. we're hiring 28 additional parking control officers. they were part of the the budget. we're also going to look at optimizing how they're doing enforcement. we have made some modest adjustments to our off street parking based on market trends and then in subsequent meetings will also be bringing some other kind of policy questions related to parking like you know, should you be able to pay

in a five minute increment, you know rather than a 15 minute increment is two hours the right time limit or do we want hiringhiri right now. to give people the option to we want to be able to to to be able to do some more strategic pay for four hours the parking rates themselves? hiring to maintain service quality to maine trust maintain we think there might be some elasticity to look at pricing. trust with our customers and with the city of permanent so we're we're stretched with these cuts be so we would start them in the summer how and everything to to try to long would they last for? do we have a sense of that when we get additional revenues or address this challenge. what what we are trying to do find ways to to to to find is to maintain the service money somewhere else? yeah. so i'm also anticipating the school year and how that's quality and so being able to address this this $50 million going to play out. deficit will allow us to hire just my last question to to my colleagues in the evening working group, what other mechanics, hire custodians, hire overhead line workers. scenarios have you seen have received a buy in from the we are right now and we'll membership there already that share with you in our six month you think are worthwhile to report you know, we are propose to shot in team to balancing our revenues and our expenditures but with some very consider as options are?

blunt tools, you know, so we i i'm just concerned that we are using a hiring freeze just have a really tight window and we're doing very little to make a decision and really tight window to get feedback from the community and so if just wondering like if you all have a sense of 1 or 2 scenarios that you're like this this did get significant buy in from the working group and these are ones that we think would be digestible to the community if you can offer this up and maybe you already did director hemminger through through the chair remember one thing about the working group is that we're focused on the $320 million problem, right? whereas what we've been talking about today is only 50 correct. and i agree with you we don't have much runway in terms of these cuts which frankly is another reason not to do them because i think it's going to be tough to get through a process on some pretty painful reductions in short order with

everybody feeling good about themselves. >> right? so my own sense of the group and director enzi can i can chip in as well is that they really weren't ready to deal there was a lot of conversation about a lot of different items but sort of coming to grips with how big this shortfall is and how our fate is in many respects out of our hands with this regional measure hovering over the scene. i think we've got one more meeting. julie is that correct? >> yes. yeah. so i i my sense of it is that what we will be able to get out of it are some options again not you know here's the magic solution. right. and i think that's a good thing

right. but i i think before we get to that we've got to fix this $50 million problem. right. and we've got to fix it quickly. >> and how did folks react to service cuts? >> i imagine that was something that was poorly, poorly. >> got it. you might have made as i can imagine that was across the board right. and the the options i put out today i they involve some amount of pain as well. >> right so there there's there's just no easy answer here but i do think we've got to keep uppermost in our mind that we've got a ballot measure to deal with whether it's a regional one or a citywide one and we've got to do everything we can to enhance its chances of succeeding. >> right. and i do understand that any

sort of solution to our fiscal cliff will will rely on a multi-pronged approach regardless. not one ballot measure i think would solve all our problems and so i, i consider this as like a menu of those options that we have. but as director hemminger is saying like i i'm wary of the in that is not there for this particular choice and so thank you to you both to everyone on the team ashley and julie you as well for considering all these different options. i know that none of you are leaving you're leaving no stone unturned so i just really, really, really appreciate that but would encourage us all to try to avoid this as much as possible and to bring different choices to us if possible. but i understand that that's going to be really tough. so thank you so much for your work. thank you very much. i would like to move to public comment and as we move into

public comment i, i just want to to thank the members of the public who are here today to to talk about this very important topic. your your point of view is very important to the board also we received quite a bit of correspondence on this item and that feedback is is very helpful to us as well. >> secretary silver members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. there will be a warning sound at 30s and a chime when the time is up for any members of the public seeking language translation today we will be using language line service if you would like to use this service please make your way to the door site and we can get you set up. >> i do have speaker cards. i'm going to read off a few if you could cue up on the tv side that would be helpful. may sturman christopher peterson, jim warshel i'll

start with those three. >> hello, my name is may stearman. i'm a d5 resident and an arts worker here in civic center. i'm here to voice my support of maintaining the six eight parnassus and the 21 hays bus routes. both lines are equitable are critical equity routes providing essential east west transit connections for san francisco residents eliminating these routes would severely impact accessibility for seniors. people with disabilities and transit to transit dependent riders in the affected neighborhoods. as a compromise i would support combining the six and the 21 connecting the six route through ucsf along parnassus with the 21 route through hayes valley along hayes and grove. this would have the added benefit of restoring downtown access to the 21. i also support moving the outbound 21 to grove on monday through thursday aligning both inbound and outbound 21 routes on grove seven days a week. the outbound 21 already had

already runs on grove friday through sunday to accommodate the hayes street shared space and the inbound 21 has always run on grove seven week. thank you for your time and for your consideration. thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is christopher peterson . i'd like to start by thanking director henninger for his comments. >> i appreciate those very much . >> that aside, all of these options are bad options as as we all realize with without signifi cant new funding there simply are no good options. the most important thing anyone in this room or anyone watching this meeting can do is urge the mayor and the board of supervisors to provide additional funding to reduce the need for service cutbacks. this board also must do

everything in its authority to raise new funding. this includes expanding the hours of enforcement for parking meters. i understand that is politically controversial but if the mayor and the board of supervisors support oppose that it's incumbent on them to identify what alternative sources of funding they would be willing to provide the agency instead. in terms of specific service changes, one option that i was disappointed not to see called out is the option of converting the 49 into a rapid route. of course any money saving measures have potential drawbacks but this is an example of a measure that would also have significant benefits in terms of improving the speed and reliability of the line. so as you look at service changes, i urge you to include in sort of the first round of changes changes that provide

significant benefits and don't look only at changes that are all bad. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker and i will read off more names iris bill bullets fran taylor, jeanne bella berra. >> hi, i'm jim marshall and i'm also part of the group recommending the 21 six consolidation into a really viable route. it will connect hospitals hills and keep service to the people that director henderson was speaking are the primary equity things i do especially relate to director having hammond jr's comments. we have to be creative. we have to be really thoughtful about when we do big asks of the public how are they going to feel about us? right now i think everybody is pretty much in love with muni the service improvements you've made, the cleanliness the on time the enhanced rolling stock

have all been noticed and people love it. you're one of the most popular agencies around. we can't do things that are going to tarnish that especially when we're going to be making big asks in addition to these things. you know i obviously am speaking for seniors, you know, that really need these lines. i'd ask that you know, we almost really relook the marketing efforts we're making . you know, when you invite san franciscans to be partners in something that's desirable, they usually rise to the occasion. it's good to hear that our revenue targets are being met but inviting them to become partners by doing more paid fares, paying their fair share is something that should be a very simple thing.

we love muni. we don't want the service cuts . we need the partnership. so if revenues not only met but exceeded because of the added fares it could be something very positive and clearly is in keeping with what director jerry is talking about and building trust. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> hi, i'm iris biblio. it's retired nurse and senior who's been dependent on muni for about 40 years 50 years here including working all shifts day and night. thank you for the possibility of no service cuts. music to my ears. the mayor and other city and state officials keep on talking about public safety. they mean crime which happens to be going down and s.f. is spending a lot of money on cops for example protecting people, shopping on union squares and other upscale shopping

centers. to me as a nurse ensuring public safety means other things like the importance of traveling on a bus all over the city up and down hills to schools, to hospitals, to clinics, to pharmacies, to the library, to grocery stores. and i'm especially talking about people from bipoc communities seniors, people with disabilities and low income families who have a very difficult time in the city in general and who depend on muni to get around and to not be so isolated. seniors now make up 20% of san francisco people with disabilities about 10% very low income people and people from the bipoc community really need muni desperately as many of us do. i like all the alternatives 2 to 2 no service cuts.

i would just say that i have not appreciated the fare inspectors. i do appreciate operators maintenance people all the all the muni workers fare inspectors. i feel like their point is what they end up doing is punishing people who are poor. and as a nurse i cannot support that. but thank you so much for 50 years of really appreciating your service. >> at midnight at 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. all over the all over the city. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> my name is fran taylor. happy transit equity day. that's a that's a real thing. it's ironic but the choices that we were offered the three scenarios i felt like were being asked do you prefer arsenic or cyanide? do you prefer to drown or be bitten by a rattlesnake?

i mean no. and i appreciate that there's a response that there could be an alternative. >> we did pass by majority proposition l but unfortunately it was never able to be enacted. and that taxing waymo, uber lyft is obviously a popular option and if there's any way that we could bring back another measure that would do that without some poison pill blocking it, i think that that's another thing to explore because obviously the the public is behind taxing these insidious way most especially i mean with the others too. and in terms of public safety and the mayor just goes yammering on and on and on about public safety cops, cops, cops. and his inaugural address had not one word about the 42 people who were killed by cars

in 2020 for not a word. and that number is just going to go up if fewer people are able to take transit and more of them are going to be driving because there'll be more cars on the street and more danger and less public safety. and i mean if his mother can cough up all that money for his campaign, why can't she give us some money for muni? and even the people who have to buy the cars when they can't use the bus will be burdened by that expense. so it really is an equity issue and i appreciate that there will be alternatives explored. >> thank you. next speaker. >> can you please speak in the mic? >> oh, sorry. i don't even. i'm such a such a not unaware person. my name is jean barnard

pereira. i've been here 55 years. i appreciate muni very much. i couldn't live without it. i just want to say thank you to all your expertise and all your hard work to try to maintain this this public service which is a right. transportation is a right. people need transportation to get to work to not have to run up hills at 6:00 in the morning in the dark because you have to walk two more blocks of over. well, people need transportation of course transportation especially in 2025 has to focus on petrol decreasing gas and that can best be done by discouraging uber lyft in the like the robo cars that are running around and discouraging people from having to drive cars. we that's why we really need to crank up the public transportation. and i really hope that we're successful at it.

and i do want to say it's in i don't know specifics economically but what how would it be legit to say to uber and lyft, you know, we're here we're hurting here with public transportation. we're so we're going to tax you. i don't know how that works but is that possible? just a question. >> okay. thanks. thank you very much. thank you. your next speaker. >> afternoon board members. my name is cyrus hall. i'm here today speaking as a writer of the 36 tera cedar and also as a member of the muni no muni forever coalition. i live on the 36th. i'm part of the 36 that was cut during the pandemic when i bought an e-bike and i am still young and can ride an e-bike but my neighbors cat ott my next door neighbors in her 70s she has a frozen neck, she has shakes and she thankfully gave up her car during the pandemic because it was unsafe to drive

when the 36 has less service her accessibility to the city is cut. my other friend who also writes a 36 older man has a walker can no longer drive. same story my next door neighbor she survives on social security. she does have a house but her only income is social security like tnc is not an answer for her no matter what decision is made on cut it's people like these who will lose their access. >> so what do we do about it? well first i want to thank the board for requesting alternatives that do not involve cuts. that's definitely a great step in the right direction. but i think the agency also needs to have a really clear communication strategy around this. >> i would love to see sfm to publish a clear report similar to what bart has done around their deficits and what cuts would mean that would discuss discuss what were the economic impact to the city b what were the impact of affordable housing be to job accessibility

to resident mobility? how much more congestion would there be for people who have to drive in the city? how much more will operating a car cost when you pay more for parking because there's more demand for parking? >> how many more deaths would we expect on the streets from additional driving? we need crystal clear documentation of what different different amounts of cuts would do to the city such that the city such as city hall and residents understand. thank you so much. thank you. next speaker hello, my name is lisa platt. >> i'm a d2 resident transit advocate car free by choice suggest as many people far younger than i am are and i appreciate what you need to do in terms of the budget as a former elected official i moved here from detroit 11 years ago part of the brain drain that happens when an area lacks

things like public transit and easy access to culture and recreation. i've seen the struggles of economic recovery firsthand and i eventually left it behind and now i'm here to live the life that i wanted to live. >> the proposed summer cuts on top of my personal loss of the 41 the 47, the ten and the night service of the 45 that connected me to all the comedy clubs i love in north beach that i now have to leave early really took my transit levels my transit experience back to what i had in detroit and so it becomes a really hard choice for me to decide to continue to pay the rent that i pay for a quality of life that is really degrading over time the mayor wants me to participate in the road in the revitalization of downtown but without train night service i can't do that.

i'm not going to pay $25 for a ride home from a free downtown first thursday event. >> he's counting on return to office which is currently in progress for economic recovery. but workers like myself can't get to downtown in what we call tech downtown because the second street corridor is completely cut off from transit already and the impacts to that neighborhood continue. we're taking down the 19 for instance in this scenario the nine etc. we're really hindering our own progress, really hindering our own economic recovery. so i need you all please to support no cuts to service and if there's any way to restore some of the things that are impacting our recovery, i would love for you to consider ways to balance that. i know there will be frustration for my neighbors who only pay $190 to park for the year. i pay over 1000 to write that

book. >> you your time is up. thank you. next speaker. >> hi everybody. hi may with san francisco transit riders and also part of the muni now muni forever campaign. first of all thank you so much for you know commenting about providing more options on a table that doesn't rely on service cuts. i also want to give kudos to mta for bringing that 50 million down to 15 million and also all the progress that we have done in terms of making transit better. and i think i want to point that out because any of these reductions in service will be a step back from that. all the work that i've done to bring back to 31 and longwood residents and mta seeing that to be suspended again you know it doesn't feel pretty good. i really would rather focus on figuring out other revenue sources. >> also, you know if we just

push away from service cuts then we can focus a lot more of the outreach for the bigger potential cuts if we're not successful facing that deficit. mta could be using all this time to figure that out for next year rather than doing piecemeal. >> also, you know the 21 to 3155 have a current total ridership of around 9200. we added a bus line to 30 x would pre-pandemic a 3400 ridership. the optics of that looks bad. this is serving the marina. the marina voted against prop l. you know i want to be petty and says maybe let's cut their services and then finally you know a potential option. >> i think san franciscans will hate me for this but maybe we should cut service to the cable cars and f line. you know that takes up a lot of money. but i also heard that the mayor would like to not happen not cut the cable car like people care about the cable car but we can raise the money privately to do that.

you know the mayor's using private donations for shelter beds. the previous mayor raised money for panic cages. i mean we can raise money to save the cable car and also save the service cuts. >> so thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi, my name is aitan adler. >> i'm a district three resident and a daily repeat media writer. i already go out of my way to take the muni basically anywhere in the city. my friends, my colleagues, my fellow students often don't. i've noticed that some rides take more than an hour when my car would take 10 to 15 minutes and i'm already putting both my time and my money to ride muni . >> i'm also worried that if we were to cut any routes now it would result in a death spiral where people are well people will be less likely to be like like me and sacrifice their commute and their time and their money to take worse

lower quality reduced hours services. and if we were to cut service we will just be here again in six months or a year proposing new cuts and new cuts until we don't have a valuable community service anymore. there's a real budget shortfall and i don't know how to solve it but i urge both you all muni and anyone else who we could convince to think about this as a longer term problem not just a short term sort of shortfall. >> thanks. thank you. your next speaker. >> good afternoon, directors dylan fabrice from san francisco transit riders and also a member of the muni now muni forever campaign. first i appreciate staff for the diligent work to address this deficit and involve community feedback when possible. and i realize that none of the solutions are going to make everyone happy but i can't in good conscience come here representing transit riders and endorse any one of these

three options. right now muni ridership is at about 80% which compared to pre-pandemic which makes sense considering service is at about 80% compared to pre-pandemic and if we introduce new cuts we can expect ridership to go down with that as well. >> it's unfortunate and ironic that these proposals are coming out today on transit equity day as we now find ourselves responding to service cuts that can only have a negative effect on equity in san francisco. 4% service cuts is huge. if you're one of the thousands of riders every day who relies on one of the impacted lines, each of the scenarios presented here assume service cuts. so i appreciate your comments about looking at alternative scenarios and do support that. we should be having a public discussion about the tradeoffs of balancing the deficit on the back of transit riders versus other means like reserves. >> and i also urge staff and all of you on the board to use your positions to meet with

city leadership to find external solutions that can immediately fill that $15 million hole. >> we should be exploring every option both internal and external at the sfm to including going to supervisors. they say they don't want cuts but we need you all to be carrying the message to them and finding the solutions that work for us and them and and the whole city. if they can find money for free parking on lunar new year like they should be able and expected to help find money for this emergency as well. >> so thank you. >> thank you. your next speaker. >> hi, my name is sarah greenwald. i'm in district two resident uh part of 350 san francisco which is part of through 50 bay area. i'm hoping you'll reconsider these cuts because as you know, you need public support for any

revenue raising measure you undertake now three 50 san francisco is focused on climate and you know gasoline is killing us right globally and transit is a wonderful climate solution. i want you to take pride in that. keep saying it all the time. you know, speak for yourselves and i know i'm sounding like my mother. you don't speak for yourselves. you can expect support on this basis. >> i'm sure you're aware of the hurricanes and the droughts and floods and the fires that we're already seeing. the rest of the city is aware of it too. san franciscans know they've got to cut back on their trips and gas cars but it's pointless to ask them to try. >> if muni can't step up and handle it right. >> so yeah you need to be out there appealing to the city. uh the region the state to save muni as a climate solution

without which we cannot do what we must against climate destruction. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. >> paul wormer once again i really appreciate the discussion and heard from you guys about finding funding so as to avoid the cuts. that's really important and i don't have a lot to add to since so many people made significant comments that but there are some things i do want to talk about and one of them is equity. and people alluded to it but we have in the city i see a lot of focus on equity priority districts. >> but what that misses is we have mobility impaired people, we have low income people. we have people who are critically dependent on muni living throughout the city.

and if you look at the two and say well that's not a transit priority. that's not an equity priority line but i see lots of older asian people riding for two and i see lots of older asian people in the free lunch line at the jcc and see i think i've got the right number of c's there. they rely on it and to say oh well you know the one is an alternative. we're talking about seniors, frail seniors and we're talking about the one running on jack running on clay in sacramento until it gets passed fillmore to steiner that's uphill from the to significantly that's not a great solution. >> so this equity issue needs to look recognize the fact we have people who are critically dependent on muni throughout the city. and when you talk about spreading out stops oh we'll do

a skip stop. well that extra 2 to 3 blocks can be exceedingly difficult for many people. so that needs to be part of the discussion and calculus. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker good afternoon directors. my name is sarah katz hyman and along with being a muni writer i am also an editor at muni diaries muni diaries. i shared stories of everyday transit riders for over 16 years. in that time we've heard stories of belonging, connection, heartbreak, love, loss, levity and longing. and while folks may think of these stories as just tales from transit fans, these stories show how ingrained and essential a robust public transit system is to the city. there's the story of kurt who at the time was experiencing homelessness and an operator gave him a pair of socks and showed him kindness. kurt is now an artist paying it forward by drawing portraits of muni operators all over the city. there's the story of katie who moved who made her way in san

francisco as an adult and eventually met her wife here riding the 44 bus end to end when they lived in different parts of the city. there's the story of jill who struggled with addiction but found a safe space in the mission at a barber shop to hone her craft and get clean. the bus outside bringing customers to and from the shop every day. there are hundreds more stories about how muni has played a role in everyday san franciscans lives. and while you all know that muni is essential for downtown and neighborhood recovery, safe streets and climate resilience ,it is also essential for our city to keep our soul. people here see muni as part of our culture. what other city has sustained 16 years of us transit storytelling muni as san francisco san francisco as muni. and if we allow it to spiral so too will san francisco. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon commissioners. i should have gotten in line before her because i don't know how you follow that.

so with that in mind i'm just going to keep it short. i just want you all to remember something and get mad about it the very same people who are dismantling our federal government as we speak are also working very hard to help dismantle our local government and our local infrastructure system. >> so as we think about funding solutions, as we think about funding solutions locally and regionally, let's keep that in mind. let's get angry and let's take and let's take what's ours. >> thanks. thank you. seeing no additional speakers in the room we do have two accommodation requests. for speaker you've been unmuted. you have two minutes. >> good afternoon. my name is george forte. um, i i for maintain all existing connection. >> um, i would like to see muni get rid of slow streets and quick builds. >> s.f. is already the second

most congested city in the united states. traffic is currently at 14mph. i would like to see the s.f. mta cut the planning department by 50%. why plan 1 to 26 will be over 330 plus budget deficit. future years will be worse. california is broke. san francisco budget deficit is huge and the federal government funding is unpredictable. cut administrative salaries by 50%. jeffrey tumlin alone was making over 400,000 per year. um also cut 10% of administrative fte is now the jaywalking is legalized in california. daylighting is no longer about safety.

it is about revenue generation. extend the 20ft from the crosswalk to 30 and charge $120 instead of 40. um also the late drop out 30s the new receipts tax. this took away $70 million from the general fund. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> to our second speaker you've been unmuted. you have two minutes. >> this is bob fine, the president of save beauty. we are opposed to the cuts. thank you. uh, director have insured the others who have waiting for the two alternatives. i'd like to suggest a another alternate day for you and this is a very serious suggest and i'd like to to present to

the alternative with instead of a 4% service cut a 4% service increase because this will show definitively to the people who san francisco that you are serious about muni service you can find the savings you can find the savings. you do not need to take it out of opera muni service you just have to get your priorities straight. there are many folks working at the city mta who are working on future projects that may or may not be funded. i would suggest that although these are interesting ideas that we put them on the back burner and we go for service to the public and put future plans

on hold. and that would mean suspending or a eliminating positions in that realm. uh sean kennedy i am here by inviting you to come to our next cdc meeting on february 17th. we meet at 530. i will send you an invitation so we can hear your alternate and i hope you have to that are being suggested as well tonight. thank you so much. >> thank you. no additional speakers. >> thank you. think thank you everyone for your for your comments. it's very helpful directors. do you have any further questions or comments? director kinsey thank you madam chair and i did just have a

couple quick questions around. i have the actual with changes i think with kind of general thought about what comment but just a couple quick points on the actual close scenario. so i just want to make sure that our comment was recorded. >> everything about here there were some interesting ideas there. >> one that was came up a lot is surviving of the 21 of respect mr. kennedy that you kind of spoke to earlier with is that right? would that even be that you think a possible good afternoon, director. yeah, we're taking our comments and we'll be we'll be looking at what's being suggested.

>> okay. i have not had time to look at that specifically but yes, if and when the group come up five and for me i personally would surprise surprised that how many how much how many comments we got in favor of scenario number two we're keeping authorized but decreasing the frequency how we got there, how we just surprised at how we're that how popularity back i think was and then they think we're 30 one i do agree with that and residents work good parts bring have back and so i do agree that at least i believe the transcript that the are i would like i told you one whenever i met with you that i think for me it would be great if it served at least to 10 to

1 part of were out who had something that came through i'm sure you'll hear them about actually you'll hear from them a while back. >> but i think that the and a particular equity meeting for that one and so yeah i'm sure you'll come back come back with i some of a hybrid of these scenarios and i i do appreciate you for laying out some policy right off and when you come back you can respond to our earlier comments around off of providing other options. >> yeah thank you director lindsey. well i'll take a few minutes now to just try to bring us back to the goal here today

which is to give you feedback as you pursue this very challenging work. and one of the things that i was struck by in your presentation are the you know, the four values that you keep in mind as you as you make these difficult decisions. >> equity and environmental stewardship are of course very important. but i want to elevate economic vitality and trust and and the the very serious consideration i know that you are giving to to the fact that those that those values are you know what really comes up as being infringed upon when we talk about service cuts so and this came up in the in public comment i think very very well

very articulately that if we are to support our economic recovery i think it's not lost on anyone and especially not on our very hardworking and thoughtful staff that that transit is absolutely key and and i and i think that there were some good comments about, you know, partnering with elected officials on that in particular that that as we work as a city family to solve our our problems that we you know, get in lockstep with one another and you know i understand director hemminger is point that the muni funding working group is focused primarily on our longer term

and very serious problem. but while we're adding options to the table i am wondering if there are any ideas that have come forward through the muni funding working group that could be activated sooner to help us find part of this $15 million and or all of it. and i just want to put that out there as as a thought as well and so that's on economic vitality. >> but i do want to touch on trust as well and and i think that this is something that comes up, you know, over and over in our hearings that the that the public the feedback from the public is they've lost trust in the agency and i know is very hard

for staff and speaking for myself as a board member to here because i know there's a just a tremendous amount of effort put into being transparent with the public, engaging with the public and and i think that the the disconnect really comes when, you know something that is very difficult ends up being the end result anyway regardless of the quality of the outreach or the level of thoughtfulness and and to kind of amplify something that i heard from my fellow directors and from the public that trust in the agency is going to be paramount if we are to go to the voters. >> and so all that to say i

think that if you are going to distill the feedback into a nutshell it would be we've cut to avoid service cuts or you know, go from 4% to 2% or 1% or you know, anything that helps us just continue growing growing the system with our ridership ridership is growing to and to have services cut at the same time as i know something nobody wants and i know that's a very, very difficult challenge but i think that the board stands ready to to work with the staff in any way that we can to to to help us get to a place where service cuts are as minimal and least

impactful as possible even as we fulfill our fiduciary duty to the agency which is a very serious piece of this. so that's all i wanted to say. >> any other comments? director chan i know you've been thank you for for serving our city as a juror today. did you have anything you wanted to chime in with? >> thank you chair i miss some of the earlier director discussion so i. i don't know it sounds like there was some discussion about trying to find some funding and so i hope that it sounds like to work with city leaders and also with advocates and no, no, no there it's i, i found very it's easy to say to say no

cuts no no no no no cuts. no cuts. no cuts. but then but then paired with that is the implicit okay well that means that you need to find money from somewhere else and then you know there's there's a mean of like the dog with the frisbee. i don't know if anybody has seen this or basically you can be like okay, well you know you can you can give sort of it's like it's like you can have you can if you can get more service but then you also need more money and then there's a dog that space say no, no more no, no, no tradeoffs only service and it's like and so i just want to make sure that we need to that that that these conversation is need to be happening like act like advocates need to be having those conversations with their electeds it is not it's it's something that you know we as directors can try to take the lead on but but and i really hope that you know with the with the funding working group that when their role ends next month right and that there are things i think i've seen that have actually pretty good consensus that we might be able to activate on in the near term and so i really hope that that that's sort of like the core of the conversation and and the current the the last thing is that you know i really hope

that the current baseline is not necessarily the end all be all and then you know as we as we think about you know in the 2026 and 2027 right it's it's it's work you know well under certain funding scenarios what could we do what is a service that we could deliver to san francisco? it doesn't have to be just 100% of 2019 levels. it can be 110%, 100%. we can make lines. we can make more lines ten minutes or more frequent. we could we could do so much more. and so i really hope that we can you know, there is this small problem and then also being focused on the bigger problem. so if i duplicated what other directors have said i apologize but i but it is i think we i think staff have appropriately kind of thrown down this the facts and it's a question of how do we respond to those facts and and this is this is one one the the the in some ways this is this is the most you know, this is a politics question, right? it's sort of like you know, it's really hard like the agency has tried to find

funding in other ways and it's been very difficult and so this so if this is where the rubber hits the road we have to if the other decisions the alternatives to cuts will make other people unhappy. >> and so it is a question of our values and priorities. thank you. i believe that we are complete so i would i would like to close this item and call for a short recess and let's return at i can't read the clock five . item 13 authorizing the director of transportation to execute contract number s.f. mta 202522 fta with new flier

of america to procure for 40 foot and three 60 foot battery electric transit busses along with associated spare parts, special tools, manuals and training through a cooperative purchasing agreement established by the state of washington for an amount not to exceed approximately three $13.4 million and a term not to exceed five years. >> thank you. good afternoon, chair tarlov and vice chair gardner and the directors. my name is bob and catch free from the zero mention program manager here at s.f. mta in transit division and it's my honor to bring this item the procurement of new flower bed electric bus for your consideration. >> next slide we're continuing to see strong improvement in muni reliability which is critical to ridership growth and customer satisfaction but we can't maintain the momentum if we do not keep the fleet in the state of good repair.

and as you heard from the speakers before me from the public comment that general public has noticed improvement in muni reliability reliability improvement we've seen are due to the transformation no fleet management program that we have incorporated and we're thrilled to be at the point where we're continuing to progress by procuring a second generation of busses the last generation of busses we started procuring in 2013 and those are coming up for retirement now this procurement really supports our efforts to bring safe, reliable and zero emission vehicle they don't replace or existing hybrid busses. there are passenger useful life now a bit of a background on this we actually have we run the greenest fleet of any city

in north america in 2018 california air resources board adopted an innovative clean transit regulation calling for full electrification by 2040 by all transit agencies in response to that we launched a pilot program in 2019 and introduced our first battery electric bus in revenue service in 2022. >> in 2023 we update it on zero emission policy to align with carbon element clean transit regulation which states that all transit agencies should transition their fleet by 2040 and then in 2024 last year we completed our pilot evaluation report with findings recommendations and future procurement strategy. that report is available on our website and then now we are bringing to you 18 better electric busses. we have received a federal

competitive grant for bus and busses ready to deploy charging infrastructure for 18 battery electric busses so this busses will be utilized to to have it charged over their we are replacing 112 aging hybrid electric busses like i mentioned or at their useful life. some of them have over 350,000 miles on them. we've already come to you last year to procure 94 of those as hybrid electric vehicles and 18 the rest of the 112 we are going to procure as battery electric busses. >> some are going to be 64 hours or 1 hour. 12 of them are going to be 40 foot busses. >> we will continue to procure a combination of both battery electric busses, hybrid busses

through 2031 to keep the fleet in overall state good good repair while we continue our journey to transition to zero emission fleet will also continue to procure trolleybus us as they come. >> they're come off the retirement age. >> it's like as part of the battery bus pilot program evaluation we determined that we should procure busses from multiple manufacturers for our future fleet. >> this will ensure competition and insulate s.f. mta from turbulent us transit bus market. currently we're seeing the new flower and gillette are only two of the only two viable u.s. manufacturers for our future fleet. they really have the manufacturing capability experience customer focus necessary to ensure success in large scale procurements. >> we are also going to introduce a third manufacturer

solaris. they are leading zero emission bus manufacturer in europe and they are planning to establish a presence in u.s. market shortly and this present an opportunity for us to really establish a partnership with an emergency bus bus manufacturer in u.s. solaris is also one of the leading manufacturer of trolley busses in europe so it is important that we partner with them so that we have a choice while we procure trolley busses in future. the last slide is really today we're bringing you the new flier contract which is for 40 foot busses and three 60 foot battery electric busses and then in by the end of the call q1 2025 or beginning of second quarter will bring you the procurement privilege which will be for five 40 foot battery electric busses and then we'll also bring

solaris item which which will have three 40 foot busses and three 60 foot busses and we're going to be partnering with king county metro on the solaris procurement. they have already issue us sole source procurement for solaris to procure the busses from them and we're going to partner with them as well. these busses will be built in poland to us specification now i'm going to turn it over to my colleague josef to talk about the details of the procurement . >> hello joseph tabora with mta's transit division. i will be the project manager for this seven bus procurement contract with new flier. the contract amount is for 13.4 million for a term of five years and here's the breakdown of the $13.4 million contract budget showing the cost of the seven busses which include manual and telematics licenses

and the allocated amounts for spare parts, special tools training and an allowance for change orders if necessary. >> next slide. so this slide shows the overall ft1 ten project budget and funding sources. the f t one's m project includes both the new flier and gilling procurements and the total cost of the ft1 ten project is 30.4 million. the majority of the funding for this ft11 ten project comes from fta grants and arm 30 funds. and as you can see on the second table the last line due to funding cuts a small amount of project funding is still to be determined as shown on the bottom line with the funding gap of 2.3 million. this does not affect today's ask for the new flier procurement which is fully funded. this will only impact the

future yearly project which will be brought to the board in the next few months and brings us to today's ask of authorizing the director of transportation to execute this contract with new fire to procure for 40 foot and three 60 foot battery electric busses along with spare parts special tools, manuals and training through the cooperative purchasing agreement established by the state of washington for an amount not to exceed $13.4 million and a term not to exceed five years. >> these last two slides are actually going to be presented to you in further detail in the next calendar item on the fiscal framework. >> so i will just introduce these slides that this slide shows a timeline of mta's bus procurement plan and it's based on the facilities rebuilds and electrification conversions of the bus yard which is required to house and operate

battery electric busses and in this slide shows the mta's future fleet makeup based on the procurements from the previous slide. so this timeline shows mta's plan and goal to achieve a 100% zero emission fleet beyond 2014 . and that concludes our presentation. thank you for your time. thank you for your presentation. directors are there any clarifying questions? director hemminger thank you madam chair. i'm looking at i think slide seven you're buying seven busses right? >> correct. for 13 million bucks. so 2 million a pop are these busses ever going to become reasonably priced? >> yeah, the 60 foot busses

right now there are only one manufacturer that manufactures 60 foot battery electric busses which is new flier and they are the majority of the cost there are almost 2.2 to 2.3 million each. >> the 42 foot busses are more reasonable. >> they're about 1.4 or 5 to 5 million each. i mean i won't date myself and tell you what busses used to cost when i was in the business. do we do you have any expectation that we can install some additional carpeting and to try to reduce price that is exactly what we're trying to achieve by awarding contract to multiple manufacturers and bringing in the third manufacturer and from europe i think we need more competition here in the us because right now there is only two viable matter of fact. sure in u.s. and their order books are really filled. >> right. i guess last question.

well i was going to ask a question i'm going to reconsider and not do it. so thank you very much. thank you. director hemminger kind of building on that question i would i would be very interested to understand your take on the cost effectiveness of the various options both in terms of the procurement and in terms of ongoing costs, you know, of you know, preparing the facilities for them energy costs, maintenance costs and such between battery electric busses, trolley busses and hybrid electric busses. is there is there one that you've you feel is is and i

and i also understand when i asked that question that these aren't all suitable for every use particularly the trolley busses can't necessarily go everywhere in the city but is there is there a an option that you feel is is the best value currently as far as cost of hybrid busses and comparing that to battery electric busses obviously better electric busses is little bit more expensive i think 30 to 40% more expensive if you compare that to trolley costs battery electric bus and trolley costs costs similar although we only have one manufacturer for trolley busses and therefore we're also introducing solaris which will give us another alternative for trolley busses . we do expect the battery electric busses to cost to go down a little bit as there are more manufactured for that

enters the space. recently we had two manufacturers go bankrupt in this space and that has really escalated the cost of electric busses right. director henderson thank you. >> i just have a question about about the future purchases. so thank you for reminding us that we approve the purchase of the hybrid busses not long ago a few months ago. do you anticipate having to purchase in order for us to get to that sort of that graph that you had in the end of the slide deck, do you anticipate having to purchase more hybrid busses or are we now just shifting towards these battery these electric busses across the fleet? >> yes, we do anticipate procuring more hybrid busses at least through 2031. the battery electric busses are

dependent on the facilities and infrastructure and you probably hear more on the next presentation on our plan to electrify some of our facilities. but for the time being we will have to procure more hybrid busses. >> okay, but you do have a anticipated date in terms of the year of when that would stop and we would start exclusively purchasing these these types of busses. >> yes, timelines fluid but yes we do have a timeline identified for that. okay. thank you. thank you, chair. thank you. >> is there public comment on this item? members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. there will be a warning sound at 30s and then a chime when time is up. >> go ahead. ready? all right. good afternoon. good afternoon, directors. my name is alex landsberg and research and advocacy director for the san francisco electrical construction industry. >> specifically about this purchase.

i think we need to think about it. one of my colleagues today went by i think the the yard over on indiana street found ten of the 12 busses that we have sitting around doing nothing from our own pilot analysis 50 5 to 60 we have availability of between 55 to 65% which is significantly lower than the fda standard. we have a variety of research coming from fda as well as other sources telling us that battery busses you need to have about 20 to 30% more busses just to be able to provide that same level of service just because of charging issues. not leaving aside these questions of availability and reliability and also, you know, we're talking about purchasing 94 diesel hybrid busses. >> these are the same people who are going to be mothballing over 100 busses that you've already paid for trolley busses that are going to be sitting there because they want to figure out some other way of of not not leveraging our overall our overhead line system in our

trolley system. the fact is that the battery busses are a boon. >> daigle we have a massive unfunded capital program that where we need to bring our equipment up to the state of good repair whether it's our powerhouses, whether it's our existing overhead line system and instead we are shoveling money into a very, very risky program with very few manufacturers with busses that simply do not perform. >> it is wishful thinking. i think we need to go back to the drawing board and actually think about how we deploy our capital dollars and actually look at our alternatives analysis and i'll be talking about it more on the next item . >> thank you. thank you. next speaker afternoon board cyrus hall symbol transportation advocate here in the city. i'll speak as a writer on this issue.

i have a lot of concerns from what i have read in the fta literature and in the agency's own analysis of its battery electric bus trial program. i don't have concerns about this particular purchasing encourage the agency to continue to experiment with battery electrics and better understand how they will perform in service. i think that's excellent. i think that's good. the more we know the better. but the long term plan to primarily rely on babs is not supported by the existing data in terms of reliability. other agencies when interviewed was not the right word but when queried by the fda have consistently and repeatedly found different problems in seattle its water intrusion in philadelphia it's at the frame's crack they repeatedly report bad mean times between failures compared to existing busses often an order of magnitude worse where an existing bus an existing trolley bus, an existing hybrid

bus in the fleet here in the city gets about 10,000 miles between failures. these busses often average between 1000 to 2000 miles between failure. >> this is an immature technology and we're basically betting the future of the agency and of service quality on this technology right now i understand that we need to electrify there are other options out there and i think we need to take a balanced approach and make sure that we don't find in ten years that we've bought a bunch of bevs that are now sitting constantly getting repaired and we can't run enough service or we have to spend a tremendous amount of additional money to have a much higher spare ratio in order to keep service running. >> thank you so much. thank you. next speaker. >> i don't favor san francisco transit riders. >> san francisco transit riders doesn't necessarily support or oppose the item that's before you today but we do encourage

the agency to do its due diligence to ensure it's moving forward with a procurement plan that not only meets the legal requirements but also serves the best interests of transit riders and taxpayers. it's not yet clear to me that moving full steam ahead with battery electric busses is the best solution for reliability or affordability and some of the concerns of the previous commenters do resonate with me . so we encourage the agency to look into alternatives to the long term procurement procurement plan that we saw on the graphs today and be transparent about sharing those findings with the public before definitively moving forward with replacing so many hybrid busses with busses with pbs. thanks. >> thank you. see no additional speakers and let me double check on accommodations. no accommodations.

>> i thank you before i open it up to my colleagues. director kirschbaum could you address funding sources for these and mandates that may also play into our decisions around the procurement? >> yes. as i've long advocated to this board we need to take a thoughtful approach to electrification and while meeting our regulatory requirements electrification is expensive and it is an opportunity cost to other things that we know support our climate our climate goals like for example transit lanes and other investments in reliability. but we don't want to be in a

position where we can't continue to purchase new vehicles and keep our fleet in a state of good repair because it is so important to the customer experience that customers are not left at the curb when vehicles break. so that's the tension here. we are working hard with the american public transit association with fta and with the industry to try to stabilize the costs of busses in general. but there is a significant premium for electric vehicles along with the facility complexities trolleys face similar challenges because of the infrastructure as well as the limitation in manufacturing. they're just such a small

subset of an already very small industry only about i think 5000 busses are built a year. and so i do think that as we look at this 112 vehicles replacing 94 as hybrids and 18 as electric vehicles is the right mix right now that will allow us to continue to experiment. but i think we are going to have ongoing challenges because the funding sources that we used to pay for busses are not keeping pace with the costs associated with the regulatory requirements that we have to electrify. >> thank you colleagues. do you have any questions or or thoughts to share?

director kane and julie could you speak a little bit more about how you're evaluating the success of this program so we heard a little bit about some of the challenges other metros are having with with electrifying their busses and the busses themselves. and so i think you're right. i think it is it is important to have like a healthy ratio to study, to examine, to see if this is the right fit, if our power grid supports this like all those different things. right. and so i, i wonder, you know just how the team is approaching evaluating this and seeing if this is something we want to pour more resources into less and and adjust as needed. >> we like all of our hard problems. we are trying to approach it with transparency. so you know, part of why the folks here have the data they need to make public comment is because we have produced a

report on the pilot that we did with the first 12 vehicles and we learned a lot of important lessons with this pilot. the first thing we learned is that unlike some agencies that have very long met like hundreds of miles for their busses, the we do not anticipate that we are going to need a we believe we can do a 1 to 1 replacement for electrification which is very promising and we're not facing that 20 to 30% vehicle procurement that was referenced in the comments. the second thing we learned is that because of our hills and our slower speeds we're getting a lot of regenerative braking which is helping in some ways to reduce our per

hour power footprint. we are also trying to use technology to manage costs so when we first looked at the what we were going to need in terms of facility electrification, you know, we we thought big we said okay, what if all the busses are come back dead and we have four hours to recharge them and then they all have to go out the next day, you know? and then we sent the electrical engineers to calculate the power demands for that and they were very, very high. we're now looking at emerging technology that can link your schedule to where the busses are parked in the yard to how charged they are and we believe by sinking up that information we can actually cut the power demand potentially in half.

>> so we're we're all learning we're learning particularly from our properties like ac transit that has looked at a whole variety of vehicles. i would agree that the reliability of the electric vehicles is not where we want it to be but i that isn't different than where the first generation of hybrids were. >> you know for example. so i think i think we're implementing at the right pace but i think electrification in general has some very big challenges and that's why when we present our next item you're really going to hear the facility framework presented as a living document. we already learned so much from the kind of first pilot from our early partnerships with puna and you're going to continue i think to see our

understanding and the industry's understand evolve. thank you so much julie that's valuable context. thank you chair. thank you. any other questions colleagues? if so will move. we've had public comment and so may i have a second or a motion in a second to approve a motion to approve second. thank you. secretary silver, please call the roll. on the motion to approve director chen by chennai director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson i director hindi i i nci director coquina i i chair tarlov hi tarlov i think you the item is approved secretary silva please call the next two items together. very good places you on items 14 and 15 item 14 presentation and discussion on the 2024

facilities framework the fda's plan to modernize and electrify and expand its transit facilities. and item 15 adopting the s.f. mta's joint development program goals and policy authorizing the director of transportation to amend the properties in the portfolio of properties included in the joint development program policy. provided that such amendments meet the site selection considerations set forth in the policy and are made with written notice to the s.f. mta board of directors and urging the san francisco board of supervisors to endorse the fda's joint development program goals and policy. >> good afternoon chair tarlov board members jonathan rogers chief strategy officer and we injure mta board meeting today with happy news and things moving forward. >> so i'm going to present the facilities framework and then wade witt griff our joint development program manager will present we'll follow up on our joint development policy. but let me start off by saying and there's been a theme in the

meeting today that there is no perfect plan. and so this is why we have our facilities framework which was designed as director kirschbaum said to be dining and adaptable over time. >> it's why we call it a framework. i'm just some basics. i think i presented this slide to you at least 5 or 6 times. but this all started in 2017 with our building progress program. and one thing i don't think i always mention but this actually was generated by the employees of the s.f. mta. this was actually a response to our employee survey in that year in which the employees asked us to really focus on the condition at their yards and their working conditions. and so over the years we have continued to make improvements across our campus in san francisco. year over year it is a multibillion dollar program as you well know. again, we're planning for the future. we have a very diligent process

with our outreach team on how to do outreach on these large projects. >> they are a bit different in the relationship that you have with the mta because this is a building in somebody's neighborhood. we not only work on the design and construction of these projects and we consider these things but also how to fund them. >> we're repairing but also modernizing. so today we've had a conversation about modern technologies. and then as you've seen with the project we use innovative ways and innovative project delivery methods to move these projects forward. >> there are three components both modernization and technology updating our physical plant to a state of good repair. electrification as you just heard that's one of the new elements. and again innovation. so taking all of those lessons learned on how we deliver projects especially larger projects here in san francisco and implementing those methods within each of these projects as they move forward. >> again, as you saw when you got your the report on our state of good repair a few

meetings ago facilities is one of the largest areas of backlog with regard to assets within the sfm to buildings alone to make $1 billion of backlog. we do have three three facilities that are at the lowest score of state of good repair that you can have and i'll be talking about that. so this investment is not only modernizing and helping us transform the way we do maintenance and provide service to the public. it's also replace ing critical assets as part of san francisco's transportation system. >> so a core component of that is our bus modernization projects. you'll see again at the bottom the the condition of some of our facilities. so presidio potrero are both remember the state of good repair scores. >> those are at one score of one. >> currently as is kirkland and we're constantly doing repair work. i'm at kirkland just to keep it a functional yard for the staff that work there.

>> both flynn and woods are these kind of second generation of our larger bus facilities. they are getting close to the end of their useful life. and again for the people that work there, the technology, the lifts that we have these are not modern spaces and so not only does the public see the benefit of the investment in these buildings in the form of service but so do our employees and doing their jobs day to day . >> so the original 2017 facilities framework had three core components and again kind of the theme of today is that we have plans plans can change and we need to be adaptable and resilient over time. >> so at that time we were planning for the fact that we were going to run out of room to store our vehicles across all of our facilities that the growth of service and our fleet requirements and future procurements would result in us literally not having enough spaces to park all the vehicles and also that we would not have sufficient bays based on apta

standards to maintain the size of the fleet that we were going to have. >> second was resiliency. a lot of our facilities are are prone and at risk to major earthquake or seismic events or there are in parts of the city that could be prone to sea level rise over time. >> and then lastly specifically around outreach. >> again, it's a different relationship and conversation because we are literally running operations in people's neighborhoods. these are large and substantial projects. and so we want to create a very long relationship with the public and people we work with when we're advancing these projects. >> the element of this component of the framework was adding something that director kirschbaum discussed and that's meeting regulatory requirements. so we're originally the facilities framework focused on we need to have these projects built in order to maintain our fleet but also deal with fleet size. we have been able to adjust that over time and continue to keep all projects moving forward taking into account the

pandemic and the amount of service we have. >> but we've also integrated the regulatory requirement around the electrification of the fleet into the overall program. >> so this is a fun map that we often show people. >> it's now within our office. >> so if you walk into one up and it's on the seventh floor you will see this map. these are all of the locations within san francisco where we run our operations. this map does not include our parking garages where we do provide service and parking services. and often when i say we are one of the largest landholders minus rec park and maybe the presidio in the government of the city and county of san francisco it's true we have a lot of facilities where we are performing work day to day on behalf of the people of the city and county of san francisco. >> so with regard to the framework we focus on our bus and trolley yards. we focus on some of our support facilities. so you'll see 1399 marin which is a long term lease that we have with the port of san francisco. >> and then you'll see muni metro east and also something

that we have been planning for for a long time. we need to own a paratransit facility. so one of the core components of the facilities framework has always been permanent operations of the firm to should be in owned facilities. we should not be in conditions where we're leasing facilities for permanent operations because it puts us at a disadvantage when we're talking about rents and renewals and in the past it has put this agency at risk so one of the priority projects we are advancing is a permanent home and headquarters for our parking control officers. that project is currently moving forward and is generally on schedule in the future as we want to continue to move our permian operations out of least facilities and again have them be in a permanent home. paratransit is definitely one of those services. >> so you'll see here kind of the layout of the projects in some cases we're going to convert that conversion largely has to do with electrification or we're going to completely

rebuild the facility that has to do with its condition and overall age. you'll see the rebuild often we call them the modernization projects potrero yard which you've been updated on presidio yard where we have been successful at getting a raise grant getting our m $3 in place, getting prop l sales tax in place to advance that project flynn yard where we're still in a day to day maintenance repair and woods yard where we are doing where we're replacing the paint booth we just replaced the bus wash at the facility. but at some point we're going to have to look at the entire yard, how it functions and how it should function in the future especially in those two locations as we look to electrify on the conversion side that's kirkland yard and honestly it's creek those are open yards and it provides us the opportunity based on both fleet size and compatibility to just convert rather than reconstruct. and then you'll see we have the pilot projects that we've talked about. we did secure a best and best facilities grant bob and brought that up.

those projects are advancing now so we can really get a sense. i think director hemminger you brought this up at some point we do consider economies of scale and overall cost so we want to do the pilots and really understand the infrastructure and cost and method to put them in and then we're hoping when we get to the full conversion projects due to economies of scale we'll see costs go down. >> so again we coordinate the facilities framework and the mass of schedules actually an attachment to this overall presentation. it is tied very closely with the bus procurement schedule and there were two reasons for that. originally when we designed it around the growth of the fleet we were constrained by time due to the fact that we really can't afford to have a complete bus yard out of operation for any significant period of time. so there's a waterfall associated with that. one of the projects occurring right now is the work at muni metro east that will allow us to store vehicles at that

location at the point when we begin the reconstruction of the potrero yard. >> and then second, we've built in at a certain point in time and this is why we've kind of upscaled each facility and planned to do so. there's twofold wait, we'll talk about that. part of that is to allow for joint development and raising revenues on our property. the other is like we need to have room for growth. there is an expectation that the service will grow in san francisco over time and these facilities need to last 100 years. so every time we make these decisions we're making a century long decision now. so we want to make sure to build in that capacity into these buildings over time as we construct them that to say this is a paygo program and for those of you that understand transportation finance and funding plans and dollars as i said up front we're always chasing dollars like constantly and using innovative finance

methods to try to fund some of these projects. >> these types of projects are the hardest to fund and that's part of the risk that you've heard in both of these presentations today. however we're constantly managing it and we're adapting as we get more information and again the framework provides us multiple options depending on how things work out. so here are some examples of implementing action scenarios included in the framework. so currently we're targets in area one assumes that we convert kirkland first again as we get more beds and electric vehicles into our fleet we will need to have a fully functional yard to maintain and store them. kirkland comes first and then is last as our most modern yard is easily and most cost effectively converted that scenario one now there's a scenario in which we will not get enough money to convert kirkland that is an expensive project for the reasons i just said. not only do we need to deal with state of good repair issues but we need to add the

technology in so there is a scenario in which between timing and funding we need to pivot to see if we can do something more cost effectively at a slower pace but still meet the time frame of the overall procurement program. so again depending on different scenarios timing regulation, fleet size technology feasibility we can continue to move projects forward because time does equal money but we have the ability to pivot as we get more information and we learn more. >> so as was stated this is a living document and that is why it is not by design called a plan. >> it is not because there are numerous scenarios and within the framework we plan for numerous scenarios depending on again technology operation, fleet procurement, timing and the amount of money that we will have. so that means we have a full team and we regularly coordinate. you've seen the team on potrero involves many different departments constantly working back and forth with our fleet engineering team here at the

mta going back and forth to determine what's needed at any particular time again not to risk or impact the service in any way and that is it if you'd like. since we call these together we can take questions on both at the end or i can take questions on this component. now before we go to wayne colleagues, is it is there any objection to hearing the next presentation and having our questions all together? >> okay, let's do that. okay. so the second item which is an approval and approval and again something that has been discussed was discussed most recently last friday as part of the muni funding working group how to advance joint development. so as i said as we're taking in the facilities framework planned for this as we look at each of our sites, how do we maximize that asset in every way? so i just talked about maximizing it with regard to

state of good repair maintenance our employees technology and fleet size. but we also looked at how do we maximize that asset to raise revenues for the agency which will in turn be invested in capital improvements first and then over time those dollars can be used for the operations and the services we provide. san francisco. so it's almost a it's kind of that old concept of redevelopment, right? we're going to redevelop these sites. we're going to try to raise revenue as we do that that will be invested in the state of good repair and our infrastructure and assets and then over time we hope to generate additional revenues long term for the operations of the agency. we did present this we will go through the feedback we received from this board and from others how we've changed the policy because i do believe i promise this board when we make major policy decisions that will be two meetings. so this is meeting to where we want approval and as notice the board of supervisors would also

like to advance it was introduced today. we'll give you an update on a resolution of support for this policy and we will get going. all right. i will turn over to meet. >> thank you, jonathan. chair tarlov directors my name's wade wyckoff and joint development program manager. >> and i'm excited to be here at 5 p.m. on a tuesday to seek your adoption. jonathan has given me a lot of words over time that i can then repeat and use and this is truly an innovative and transformational effort for the agency. so thank you jonathan for that. and the purpose of this action really is to define the desired results of our program over time. and the approaches for how we will achieve those results. it is foundational to our efforts and it provides clarity to stakeholders of knowing how, where and when to engage with

the program. >> given it has been four months since we introduced the goals and policy, i will repeat some information from last time. and then as jonathan said i'll give you an update on how we've changed that goals and policy based on yours and other stakeholder feedback. >> first, just what is it? >> what are we talking about? it's kind of wonky term but it's really a way to help ourselves through diversifying our funding sources without burdening taxpayers. >> the charter states that we should seek new sources of funding which can be used to supplement or replace general fund appropriations. so it's another tool in our toolbox to do that. and this tool tool has a developer use our land for uses such as housing and commercial development. the developer typically owns and finances the improvements for those uses and then the

developer provides us lease payments for the land. the projects may also include mta uses such as the bus facility, public parking or transit stations. >> and for further contact. >> and this is what jonathan was referring to the city and county of san francisco. other public agencies own a significant amount of land. this map shows that with the land under mta jurisdiction highlighted in red which consists of more than 90 properties. >> so going back to that last presentation, this is a combination of facilities as well as our parking garages, parking lots and other land that mta owns. >> and we are proposing these goals for three right now for three primary reasons. the first as you just heard we have 18 transfers station facilities that need to be

modernized and expanded to meet our goals. so we can use our land to generate revenue to help pay for those projects. >> second, we know that the city and the region are facing unaffordable housing, less downtown activity and significant climate effects. and so the goals and policy can help address these challenges. and for example, the san francisco board of supervisors must re zone a significant portion of this city by january 2026 to meet san francisco's requirements for housing. and so having an adopted policy is instrumental in informing that rezoning. >> and then third, the policy complies with the california surplus land act. i'll get into that act a little bit more later. but basically if this policy is adopted it will provide flexibility to us in meeting that act instead of an ad hoc

project by project approach which in turn can provide more revenue to the agency. and so and still provide a significant amount of affordable housing for the city to inform the goals and policies we engage stakeholders. this included a lot of collaboration with other city agencies to solve our common challenges. it also includes the the board hearing we had here conversations with other transit agencies and a stakeholder workshop. in general stakeholders were very supportive and some stakeholders were enthusiastic . you may not see that this evening but if you were there last friday at the meeting the funding working group there was a lot of enthusiasm for the program. in addition, we've met with elected officials and as jonathan stated our resolution urges the board of supervisors

to endorse the goals and policy. and about two hours ago supervisor melgar did introduce the resolution that would do that. and if i heard correctly i believe there were three other co-sponsors as well on that resolution. >> so that's what we've done on the goals and policy but our engagement won't stop there. once this is adopted we we will work on policy implementation with stakeholders and individual projects will still have engagement. and just to be clear this policy does not change san francisco charter or codes future projects will be subject to those applicable project specific approval process says and will determine the specific approvals and uses as part of those those efforts. >> but i think stakeholders have been supportive because they agreed that joint development is one of many

solutions to address the challenges and they they generally agree with our goals for it. so that brings me to those three goals. we made slight revisions to the goals and response to board feedback in october as shown here and the final goals are first and foremost the top priority is to use private investment to maximize public good. that's to generate substantial long term revenue that we can reinvest back into our system. >> the second goal is to create inclusive and well connected communities in this goal is intended to address our city's housing equity goals by adding new housing in neighborhoods with more resource us. and then the third which we've talked a lot about this evening is about building sustainable and resilient projects. >> those are the goals and now the policy. the policy provides a framework for clear decision making. it has 20 strategies that we will use to advance the program

of which i'm just highlighting three here. the first is portfolio development. this involves us identifying mta properties that are subject to the policy based on several considerations. and so we've done this by narrowing down the 90 plus mta properties to 25 that i'll share in a moment. >> the next strategy is portfolio evaluation. and this detailed evaluation would include the development potential by land use and include projections of job growth and revenue to the mta across the portfolio. and then the last strategy here is portfolio requirements which mostly relates the california surplus land act and this act general generally requires all local agencies to offer land that is for sale or lease to affordable housing developers prior to selling, selling or leasing that land. >> the california legislature recently added a new section to

the act for transportation agencies like us. and this section allows us to use land to generate revenue if the policy meets several conditions and according to a letter that we received from the state department of housing and community development earlier this month or i'm sorry last month our policy complies with the act specifically and i know there were questions around this a few months ago. the policy will designate at least 50% of the land at large properties in the portfolio for residential uses. and of those properties at least 25% of the units will be for affordable housing. so this provides the city a significant amount of affordable housing across the portfolio and flexibility to the mta in how to achieve that percentage and the opportunity to generate revenue.

>> we also revised a few existing strategies to reflect feedback that we've heard. a constant theme has been about the need for adequate staffing to scale up the program to deliver projects. so we revised one strategy around that. and then we heard themes from our workshop about encouraging us to be bold and encourage innovation. so we've listed ways to do that in the policy such as through rezonings. we also added two new strategies based on board feedback. the first is titled community benefits and that just makes explicit that joint development that generates substantial long term revenue to invest in mta system is a community benefits . >> and then it states that we should balance project feasibility with requiring additional community benefits for certain projects and we list what those types of community benefits could be. and then the second new

strategy states that we should encourage temporary uses at a property if it doesn't affect our revenue generation and it serves a need in a neighborhood or citywide plan. so again a lot of words. now the map is why most people care about this policy includes this portfolio of properties that have the potential to advance our goals through future projects. since october we've just revised the maps eligibility. we haven't actually revised any of the properties in the portfolio itself. so that the portfolio is the 25 sites in green. and of those 25 properties in green, 24 of them are either downtown or in areas that are in the focus of the rezoning led by the planning department to meet san francisco's requirements for housing. and again that rezoning must be done by january 2026.

>> to explore the portfolio further, people can go to mta during development program web page and we have a cool interactive map of these property properties. >> this portfolio's large it will take significant effort to advance projects to diversify our funding sources over the long term. >> and so that's why it's important for us to adopt the goals and policies. again, it's foundational as it will define what we're trying to achieve and the approaches for how we will achieve it. it will also provide more clarity and predictability to our process. so with that i respectfully request that you adopt a resolution including the or to urge the board of supervisors to endorse it as well. thank you. i'm happy to answer questions. >> hi colleagues. i would like to go to public

comment before we ask our questions. very good. >> members of the public will have two minutes with a 32nd warning. >> thank you. alex lansberg again a research and advocacy director with the electrical industry. >> i want to i'm standing here to really urge you to retake control of this process. last night i was reviewing old facilities frameworks going back to 2013 and what you see was up until 2017 we seem to be sort of moving and maintaining sort of a status quo alignment of our system and after the passage of the clean transit rule in 2019 there was a report to carb that that indicated that mta or muni was going to completely eliminate the transit system or the trolley system. we've walked that back and that's great. but what this what i could not find and granted it was a

cursory look and this was before when i really before i really started digging into this this happened to before i really started digging into this was that there was never any alternatives analysis i feel like a crazy person standing up here as a as a trained planner asking a governing agency to conduct an alternatives analysis before embarking on a multibillion dollar capital program. and when you have an acting general manager who who tells me in a public meeting with the transit riders that oh, our high level analysis that i don't have any paperwork for that i can't justify with any slide show tells me that you're wrong. but like what are we thinking? i mean i'm asking for a very small expenditure that will tell us whether or not we're going to blow $500 million. >> and the answer is crickets. we can't have that. this is just absolutely unacceptable. at a time when san francisco is struggling, we just we're here. people are struggling to make to keep the lights on to keep the system running as it is to

to simply say like i don't need to do this really is the height of irresponsibility. like we need to invest in our transit system. we need to upgrade our facilities. we need to do the stuff that they're talking about but we can't do it blind. we can't do it just because we want to do it a certain way. >> thank you. thank you. seeing no speakers and we have a one accommodation speaker you've been unmuted. >> you have two minutes to keep the lights. yes. hi, this is bob finebaum, president of c muni. >> on item number 15 i just i'd like the see the strategy that you're going about but i'd like to add two comments to that. number one, i didn't at least i couldn't make out on the map. where do you have any commercial plans for that long

stretch of a subway corridor or between market street and union square? and the reason i'm mentioning that is because the enormously successful project commercial project that had been conducted in conjunction with transit in toronto that are very significant and i think potentially would be there too to have lots of little businesses lining that very long walkway. and i would commend that to be included among your projects and perhaps included in a policy goals. second thing i'd like to point out is the exciting experiment that i saw written up about a project in st louis which

integrated bus stops into neighborhood commercial district. it was both the economic development and also a community empowerment kind of program which both improve the bus stop and and allowed it to be part of a community development district. i think that would also be something that you might consider. you got a lot of bus stops. obviously it's not feasible that many of them but it's some it could be. and to think clearly about how that could be done might be very beneficial. i just come in those two ideas to be included in the plan. >> thanks. thank you. no additional speakers. thank you colleagues to have questions thoughts. >> chair can you confirm you close public comment? oh pardon me.

that will close public comment. thank you. >> secretary silva and director kahane. have a good section director and hemminger. >> thank you, madam chair. could you put the map back up? >> my my question is, you know, now that we've got a policy and goals and this has been a long time coming so better late than never, jonathan but here we are. >> there are a lot of ps on this map and the question is do do you intend to procure each one of those individually with a developer or or maybe you divided into four quadrants

and have some master developers? i mean what's your thinking about next steps now that we've reached this milestone? >> great question. so first i would say in terms of next steps, making sure we're clear what our priorities are for the projects in that portfolio presidio yard is definitely a priority. and then we are exploring with our partner agencies in particular some of our assets downtown mosconi fourth and folsom fifth and mission. >> in terms of your question of how to actually develop these and procure them, your thought was one of the thoughts that came up in the workshop that we had with various stakeholders in this field and some people suggested that it might be more appetizing if you offered a suite of of sites at once maybe

with one big site and some smaller sites to be determined . we're looking to procure a consultant that's in this field to help advise us strategically what we should do next in terms of what properties, what systems we should put in place, how we should work with the board of supervisors on any legislative changes that should be put in place to really implement this policy. so your idea is one of many. and i think we're going to need to work on implementation to really figure that out. >> well and you mentioned downtown and we've got a new mayor who is obviously focused very heavily on that piece of territory. does does he have a quarterback for that or is it part of his new structure of of sort of cabinet secretaries? because it seems to me that ought to be a connection you make right away.

>> yeah. >> so the office of economic and workforce development and the planning department are the two partners that i was referring to and i don't know if jonathan you have anything to add to that? >> no, i would generally give the same answer. i, i think it's sarah dennis phillips largely who's the city's director of our office and economic and workforce development. >> i think part of our thinking around the downtown and our own properties was to your point director what's the city's vision for what the downtown wants to be? >> i think we're starting to get a sense of that now from the new administration. and so where we had been a little tentative around move you know, not getting ahead of the city or either administration. i think there's there's a sense that we could probably move faster than we thought we could prior especially in this new environment. >> yeah. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, director keena. >> just to expand on that a

little bit ago i was looking at the map as well and i was looking at like where are these properties? what areas are we looking at? and i think it's definitely encouraging to see that there's clusters in places where i think there are already economic development initiatives in place. so that's really promising and what i appreciate about the improvement to the policy that you've made particularly around community benefits and temporary uses is a gives folks in the community an opportunity and also representatives of those communities opportunity to really shape what happens what these projects really look like in a way that truly benefits and speaks to their constituents. so i, i think that that was a i appreciate you taking the feedback and running with it and including it and i think you're it it just makes it such a more useful tool for folks in communities and it shows that you're really working across different departments here. it's not just thinking about transit. it's really thinking about a

community as a whole. and so i, i appreciate the work that was done in this to to amplify that and to make it more comprehensive and not so narrowly focused on on our needs but really the needs of the community and at the same time really trying to create some scaffolding or some support for our immediate needs as what our our future needs are ongoing needs to make sure that we have a sustainable system so i think you know, all the work that you both have put into this and the whole team has put into this you could see the level of care that was placed in there. so just shout out to you both for this presentation but also for working in partnership with our sister agencies. appreciate it. thank you. director chin thank you chair. appreciate i appreciate some of the feedback that you've incorporated around some of the work around zoning and also about staff capacity.

echoing dr. keno i know that these things probably cannot help us like you in the next like 1 or 2 year timeframe but i really do hope that this is really an end that you know, i think everyone in the city can recognize that this is a way to sustain the agency without having to ask the voters for a sales tax or parcel tax payroll tax, utilities, some of the other funding options that we've that we've looked at. >> and in addition to in terms of near term. once this policy is passed it sounds like it sounds like there's going to be some immediate steps like we're there is a prioritization of certain certain lots. i think you said you said downtown. >> mosconi yeah. so if i could clarify that. so presidio yard is i happen to be a project manager for presidio yard so that is a priority for me. but but i would say that the other priorities outside of the individual sites are working with the planning department

and our elected officials on the rezoning. i can't overstate how important that rezoning is because it sets the value it sets the density for our land and so making sure our colleagues at other departments understand that which they do and and elected officials understand that. so i think it was a really positive sign that supervisor melgar introduced that resolution. we'll continue to meet with them on on on the importance and the relationship. so i think like policy wise that's an important next step over this this next year also working on if there are tools in the legislative toolbox to help meet the strategies that are in in this policy then in terms of specific projects it is a bit of an agency capacity staffing issue to actually deliver and project manage more

projects but we can partner with our other agencies to see if they have capacity to support us on some of those other sites that i mentioned earlier, we are procuring a consultant to support us as well and advise us and identify that next suite of projects over time that you mentioned it's not going to solve our our near-term deficit. this is about creating long term revenue. >> thank you director henderson thank you. >> i have a question about the um the well, i'm hoping that you might be able to give maybe a ballpark about how many potential units you all see would come out of this and and i hope you're comfortable, you know, just given some number that might be um, kind of realistic and i'm i think it's

important in asking for support and also advocating from others, you know, giving the vision and saying this is this many units or approximately this many years towards the you know, 80,000 that we are supposed to be building or whatever you know, whatever is out there. and so i'm just curious if you're comfortable giving a ballpark figure. >> i am not comfortable on all 25 properties. okay. i can say that we did for the board hearing four months ago we did a revenue projection analysis of different scenarios where a high scenario where we deliver more projects there dance we projected or consultant projected around $40 million a year now to inform that projection we had to come up with development assumptions. i'll just say it was in in around 1000 to 2000 units of those 12 sites those some of

them were our bigger sites. if you think about potrero yard that's approximately 450 units presidio yard we're planning for. it's also a big site so i don't feel comfortable like on a specific number right now because that's actually one of our other steps that director chance is to do a more detailed evaluation of like what is our development potential across this whole portfolio. we just did more of a back of the envelope if you will, of a certain set of sites. >> okay. thank you. >> i think um i, i think that this is you know, really this is the important work that you know, as you say it will not necessarily be the immediate or near term solution but certainly is the that 100 year vision for this agency. >> and so i'm really excited to see it move forward. i think that there's so much potential and then there's so many opportunities to work with

other city departments and i, i mean i think that this is where we really can ask the city family to you know, kind of um show that that that creating new housing or creating this economic development is the priority and and being able to use these these sites as as opportunities while still being able to have you know high quality work facilities for for employees i visited a couple of months ago i visited potrero and am amazed by how the team has been able to make something that you know, looks of a time you know, make it work and i think that figuring out a way to use the properties use the land that we have to um to deliver you know better working conditions for staff um but

also be able to solve some of the city's housing problems is is is is paramount and it is really the opportunity for us to connect with other city departments and say okay this is you know we're all moving forward under the same um on the same page and under the same understanding that this is the goal that we're trying to meet and it seems exciting and also uh sort of daunting but i think that being able to you know at least here a number helps to to for me to talk to my neighbors or for people to you know, to just help regular folk understand that this is something that also is sort of not the busses and not you know, bike lanes and things like that but can help us solve um transit issues but also you know the other really important challenges that the city is facing for um for the next you know, several decades. and so i just i want to thank

you for putting all this complicated work together and you know and then i guess my last question for you is is there an opportunity for the public to participate or somehow learn more about where the process is going now that the or assuming the policy is adopted? >> yes, absolutely. and thank you for your comments . so there will be many opportunities. first, just speaking of collaborating with other departments, i'm i'm potentially going to go to the planning commission soon to talk about the program and present it within the context of all the work that they're doing but more you know on the individual level we were awarded in a grant from the u.s. department of transportation to do some of the strategic planning work, the policy work that i was discussing, the implementation work that i was discussing before as part of that grant we committed to doing like deep engagement with particular

communities near these sites so that consultant team that i mentioned earlier will be helping us with that. so we will do some conceptual planning at different sites in particular the ones that are our priorities for the the next few years and then as the individual projects advance to the actual like ready to build and get approved or get approved and then get built, there will be engagement as part of those individual projects too. >> okay, very good. um, thank you chair director lindsay yeah. >> thank you. we are as you my questions first since you're over podium but i do have a few questions for jonathan as well. are you, um you just talk to dr. henderson about, um,

housing assignment in this plan ? so are we looking at i know there's a need and a desire that i support strongly about having a paratransit your right especially inside that housing are we also looking at potential other development land uses or other way of uses? although we don't at this point. our focus on housing two responses to that one is to be clear like none of these sites have specific development proposals on them except for potrero yard and we are we are now planning for presidio yard. okay so any projections that we would give would be based on some sort of analysis using our our best guesses but without a developer it's to be determined what would actually get built. but the second answer is what

adopting these goals and policy allows us to do is consider other uses under the california surplus land act so we're not tied to every project under that act if we didn't adopt this every project would have to be first offer to an affordable housing developer. okay that's generally the law. okay with some exceptions by adopting this this provides us the flexibility to meet that affordable housing requirement across the portfolio over time and have some properties with other uses besides housing. yes. and then lastly for this item for community payments our engagement i assume that that would be done on a line from

potrero and individual project basis when the rubber meets the road and what was there in our background opportunities for outreach and engagement on development in general um with the all yeah so there will be opportunities as part of that grant work that i mentioned to kind of shape development in general and then some specific locations and then on the individual development projects come the the level of engagement will vary depending on the the complexity of the project and its size. some of the smaller project sites may a developer may propose something that is very consistent with the zoning that went through its own public process and it's a less complex site that they engagement might be less complex compared to like a potrero yard and a

potentially a presidio yard that that the engagement will be deeper and you know for a more complex project. >> right okay. and then jonathan, i've got a couple questions for you on the facilities framework. >> um could you remind us of the issue to ask about this in the electric bus item? could you remind us who are a lot of electrification timeline actually is above and on the ultimate oh 2040 20 one okay um and then can you sort of remind us how i work working with the victim all if i know that if i go topic but do you still have or were events right in a time

where we don't know a lot about these projects are we advancing or meeting on them? >> good good question. so i think that has come up across the the three items today. so the answer is we needed to kind of get a sense of what the power requirements were or could be. so julie noted that in our initial estimates for electrification like we were assuming worst case scenario and you could have powered san francisco three times over in the four hours we wanted to charge our vehicles. and so again through technology these pile it's we've learned a lot to kind of again come up with the spec of what's required on the physical sites and plants is one of the best practices and lessons learned is on all of our projects we get a citywide team so as director henderson said, the city family is almost always involved with all of these

projects upfront when we start and so one of our partners on this on this particular program especially the electrification side is the san francisco puc. so what we do and what we have been doing is so kirkland's an example of that. >> it's layla's creek is we've been trying to get our ppg and e applications done extremely early so again traditional project delivery we kind of wait for the design to be done and then we get a contract or and i think as many people know we're kind of waiting around losing times in cost escalation due to having pge come in and get their work done. so that's definitely a lesson to learn that we've had over numerous projects over the years. so we're actually once we get a sense of the power requirements we're really working upfront to try to get our pgce applications early and kind of manage that regulatory process and their requirements in parallel with the project delivery by site. >> okay.

and then could be this is again long range bedroom where we can you go over what we do with your renovations down the road . i know we're keeping the picture but we're keeping we keep fairly when we do that at muni metro east so or like the presidio yard and other yards that we do can you go over what the idea is for relocation here but yes and you know maybe that should be addressed as part of you know some of the feedback that the board has gotten today. so you know, potrero was a deliberate decision that is going to be the headquarters and as you know, it's a significant 100 million if not billion dollar investment in trolley coaches. it will be our trolley coach

facility for muni and it will house when completed the entire the entire trolley coach fleet so both the fleet at potrero and presidio eventually so that that's part of that waterfall we upscale the number of vehicles that we can store and maintain have modern technology to manage and maintain our trolley coach fleet at potrero which in turn allows us to close down presidio kirkland we will need what we call swing and so we this is why we're building muni metro east and making modifications to the 1399 marin facility now to allow for that swing as we need to move vehicles offsite especially if we need to do work at a slas and or kirkland because those are operating yards especially as las will continue to operate so we'll need to flex the space and the vehicles over time but again it's based on technology, it's based on the procurement

schedule and we again have created the adaptability in the framework to deal with whatever scenario materializes over the next 5 to 6 years. >> so it seems the your whole would call it a framework. >> it seems like your whole framework realize that upon construction with successful construct of a patrol yard i guess has this board not felt my urgency around that? yes petro yard is definitely the first component in a very complex capital program um in which each project is dependent on the next and in order to continue and have as little disruption to the public with regard to muni service and trying not to you know, disrupt our day to day operations, it has been designed in that way but again

the mistake we made in the past was a perfect waterfall and perfect plan and that's just not realistic. so the framework again considers numerous different iterations as i will tell you and some of you on the board might remember this we're going to make a $100 million investment in miami like we were in i'm a full operating trolley coach yard there because we didn't need the space and we didn't need as long we cut that project back to something much more meaningful or something that we could afford again to keep the program moving but something where we needed to store vehicles and we could still provide service without any disruption. so again we kept the schedule, we actually reduce the cost and we're continuing to move forward with potrero. so we have been able again to adapt to changing circumstances one of those being the regulation around electrification that recently you know that's pretty new overall. well we've adapted the program

for that that situation so i really do want to stress adaptation and resiliency but i do want to stress again which we consistently do that potrero and presidio are over a century old and must be replaced. >> all right. thank you, madam chair. thank you. i i a lot of my questions have been answered through the questions of my colleagues here but i just want to note that i am hearing you know, just a great deal of coordination with other agencies. oh iwd the board of supervisors the planning department p, c and i think that that is tremendously important. my question kind of goes into

that which is that is i know that there's a special carve out for transit in particular for doing this sort of development. are there other agencies or landholders in in the city that would be in a similar situation has any of that work ever occurred previously? are there lessons that they learned the hard way that we could build on from that? >> i would say the best example in the city where we have taken a lot of lessons learned is the port of san francisco where they have to manage both their maritime and regulatory responsibilities with regard to their operations with you know, development and redevelopment and some very old piers that needed, you know, investment and redevelopment where they have been able to successfully

both raise some revenues for the port of san francisco for them to meet their maritime mission but also redevelop and build spaces along the embarcadero and the southeast corridor of the city. so we definitely especially on the joint development and financing processes have definitely learned from their experiences and projects over time and we took some of the best practices both learning what did work for them and what didn't and integrated that into what we did. >> the other thing citywide coordination is always an issue and so what we did in 2017 is there is a multi departmental five party mou that exists between the departments. so chris lazaro who's been here before who's our our development director, the team he has who you've seen here for potrero they work in multiple departments the mayor's office of housing, san francisco planning department. we would and so we set up that

mou upfront because we knew we would need the resources and expertise of the other departments like why hire them when it's the same people you're going to have to work with so that was definitely again a lesson learned from other large projects and or development projects in the city that we implemented very early which is allowed us to move as quickly as we have. >> oh very good. are there other regional agencies who've under transit agencies who've undertaken similar projects that you know, do you want to talk about the legislation? >> yeah. yes. thank you for that question. so bart has joint development transit oriented development team, the valley transportation authority which actually was very instrumental in helping inform the surplus land act requirements that are in the policy because they were the

first transit agency in the state to take advantage of that . i coordinate with those agencies as well as other agencies throughout the state l.a. metro being one of the bigger ones on joint development transit oriented development once a month and we are sharing lessons lessons learned and sharing updates on policy and on the policy level. senator wiener has introduced two bills that directly would affect this work. >> one of them would streamline the environmental review for projects that include well actually let me clarify that that bill would eliminate an expiration date for bus facility projects and other transit supportive green projects, sustainable transportation projects and then he's introduced an intent bill that would do a

number of things around as zoning. but one of the things it would do is start a conversation with transit agencies in jurisdictions about their use of land and the density of their land. so very similar to what i described earlier and how how can we maximize density and that by what i mean by intent bill is the bill the nuts and bolts of the bill have not been identified. it's just it's he's stating this as his ten to work with jurisdictions to develop that bill further so i've been also in conversations with other transit agencies about that bill, thank you so much. that concludes our portion. may i have a motion in a second to approve the item? >> hello and secretary silva, please call the roll on the motion to approve director chen. hi chen i director hemminger

high hemminger director henderson henderson i director hindi ai india director kahuna hi cookie and i chair tarlov hi carlos i thank you that item is approved. >> we will now open public. >> secretary silva please call the next item very good place as you on item 16 discussion and vote pursuant to admin code section 67. 10b as to whether to invoke the attorney client privilege and conduct a closed session conference with legal counsel we will now open public comment for item 16. any members of the public wishing to provide comment on this will have two minutes each. there will be a warning at 30s and then a time when the time is up. i am not seeking seeing any speakers at this time and i have no accommodation requests. may i have a motion and a second to go? we will now close public comment. may i have a motion and a second to go into closed session? >> so moved and moved.

>> secretary silva please call the roll on the motion to go into closed session. director chen i i director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson i director lindsay i cia director karina i you know i chair tarlov i tarlov i thank you the board will now go into closed s.f. gov tv. >> i don't see the video on the webex yet. >> there we go. >> there we go. thank you. 653 okay directors ready to

return places you on item number 17 just go to my notes. >> item number 17 the board met in closed session and chair tarlov appointed director hemminger to be the labor negotiator in the director of transportation hiring process places you on item number 18 motion to disclose or not disclose the information discussed in closed session motion second row on the motion to not disclose director chen i and i director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson i director hainsey i india director kahana i cookie and i chair tarlov i of i thank you the motion passes and concludes the business before you today thank you colleagues, staff and members of the public we are now

adjourned

dev mission's goal is aiming to train young adults, youth so we can be a wealth and disparity in underserved communities like where we are today. my name is leo sosa. i'm the founder and executive director for devmission. we're sitting inside a computer lab where residents come and get support when they give help about how to set up an e-mail account. how to order prescriptions online. create a résumé. we are also now paying

attention to provide tech support. we have collaborated with the san francisco mayor's office and the department of technology to implement a broad band network for the residents here so they can have free internet access. we have partnered with community technology networks to provide computer classes to the seniors and the residents. so this computer lab becomes a hub for the community to learn how to use technology, but that's the parents and the adults. we have been able to identify what we call a stem date. the acronym is science technology engineering and math. kids should be exposed no matter what type of background or ethnicity or income status. that's where we actually create magic. >> something that the kids are really excited about is science and so the way that we execute that is through making slime. and as fun as it is, it's still

a chemical reaction and you start to understand that with the materials that you need to make the slime. >> they love adding their little twists to everything. it's just a place for them to experiment and that's really what we want. >> i see. >> really what the excitement behind that is that you're making something. >> logs, legos, sumo box, art, drawing, computers, mine craft, and really it's just awaking opportunity. >> keeping their attention is like one of the biggest challenges that we do have because, you know, they're kids. they always want to be doing something, be helping with something. so we just let them be themselves. we have our set of rules in place that we have that we want them to follow and live up to. and we also have our set of expectations that we want them to achieve. this is like my first year officially working with kids. and definitely i've had moments

where they're not getting something. they don't really understand it and you're trying to just talk to them in a way that they can make it work teaching them in different ways how they can get the light bulb to go off and i've seen it first-hand and it makes me so happy when it does go off because it's like, wow, i helped them understand this concept. >> i love playing games and i love having fun with my friends playing dodge ball and a lot of things that i like. it's really cool. >> they don't give you a lot of cheese to put on there, do they? you've got like a little bit left. >> we learn programming to make them work. we do computers and programming.

at the bottom here, we talk to them and we press these buttons to make it go. and this is to turn it off. and this is to make it control on its own. if you press this twice, it can do any type of tricks. like you can move it like this and it moves. it actually can go like this. >> like, wow, they're just absorbing everything. so it definitely is a wholehearted moment that i love experiencing. >> the realities right now, 5.3 latinos working in tech and about 6.7 african americans working in tech. and, of course, those tech

companies are funders. so i continue to work really hard with them to close that gap and work with the san francisco unified school district so juniors and seniors come to our program, so kids come to our stem hub and be exposed to all those things. it's a big challenge. >> we have a couple of other providers here on site, but we've all just been trying to work together and let the kids move around from each department. some kids are comfortable with their admission, but if they want to jump in with city of dreams or hunter's point, we just try to collaborate to provide the best opportunity in the community. >> devmission has provided services on westbrook. they teach you how to code. how to build their own mini robot to providing access for the youth to partnerships with adobe and sony and google and

twitter. and so devmission has definitely brought access for our families to resources that our residents may or may not have been able to access in the past. >> the san francisco house and development corporation gave us the grant to implement this program. it hasn't been easy, but we have been able to see now some of the success stories of some of those kids that have been able to take the opportunity and continue to grow within their education and eventually become a very successful citizen. >> so the computer lab, they're doing the backpacks. i don't know if you're going to be able to do the class. you still want to try? . yeah. go for it. >> we have a young man by the name of ivan mello. he came here two and a half years ago to be part of our

digital arts music lab. graduating with natural, fruity loops, rhymes. all of our music lyrics are clean. he came as an intern, and now he's running the program. that just tells you, we are only creating opportunities and there's a young man by the name of eduardo ramirez. he tells the barber, what's that flyer? and he says it's a program that teaches you computers and art. and i still remember the day he walked in there with a baseball cap, full of tattoos. nice clean hair cut. i want to learn how to use computers. graduated from the program and he wanted to work in i.t.. well, eduardo is a dreamer. right. so trying to find him a job in the tech industry was very challenging, but that didn't stop him. through the effort of the

office of economic work force and the grant i reached out to a few folks i know. post mates decided to bring him on board regardless of his legal status. he ended his internship at post mates and now is at hudacity. that is the power of what technology does for young people that want to become part of the tech industry. what we've been doing, it's very innovative. helping kids k-12, transitional age youth, families, parents, communities, understand and to be exposed to stem subjects. imagine if that mission one day can be in every affordable housing community. the opportunities that we would create and that's what i'm trying to do with this

>> i don't think you need to be an expert to look around and see the increasing frequency of fires throughout california. they are continuing at an ever-increasing rate every summer, and as we all know, the drought continues and huge shortages of water right now. i don't think you have to be an expert to see the impact. when people create greenhouse gases, we are doing so by

different activities like burning fossil fuels and letting off carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we also do this with food waste. when we waste solid food and leave it in the landfill, it puts methane gas into the atmosphere and that accelerates the rate at which we are warming our planet and makes all the effects of climate change worse. the good news is there are a lot of things that you can be doing, particularly composting and the added benefit is when the compost is actually applied to the soil, it has the ability to reverse climate change by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil and the t radios. and there is huge amount of science that is breaking right now around that. >> in the early 90s, san francisco hired some engineers to analyze the material san

francisco was sending to landfill. they did a waste characterization study, and that showed that most of the material san francisco was sending to landfill could be composted. it was things like food scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells and sticks and leaves from gardening. together re-ecology in san francisco started this curbside composting program and we were the first city in the country to collect food scraps separately from other trash and turn them into compost. it turns out it was one of the best things we ever did. it kept 2.5 million tons of material out of the landfill, produced a beautiful nutrient rich compost that has gone on to hundreds of farms, orchards and vineyards. so in that way you can manage your food scraps and produce far less methane. that is part of the solution. that gives people hope that we're doing something to slow down climate change. >> i have been into organic

farming my whole life. when we started planting trees, it was natural to have compost from re-ecology. compost is how i work and the soil biology or the microbes feed the plant and our job as regenerative farmers is to feed the microbes with compost and they will feed the plant. it is very much like in business where you say take care of your employees and your employees will take carolinas of your customers. the same thing. take care of the soil microbes and soil life and that will feed and take care of the plants. >> they love compost because it is a nutrient rich soil amendment. it is food for the soil. that is photosynthesis. pulling carbon from the atmosphere. pushing it back into the soil where it belongs. and the roots exude carbon into the soil. you are helping turn a farm into a carbon sink. it is an international model.

delegations from 135 countries have come to study this program. and it actually helped inspire a new law in california, senate bill 1383. which requires cities in california to reduce the amount of compostable materials they send to landfills by 75% by 2025. and san francisco helped inspire this and this is a nation-leading policy. >> because we have such an immature relationship with nature and the natural cycles and the carbon cycles, government does have to step in and protect the commons, which is soil, ocean, foryes, sir, and so forth. -- forest, and so fors. we know that our largest corporations are a significant percentage of carbon emission, and that the corporate community has significant role to play in reducing carbon emissions. unfortunately, we have no idea and no requirement that they disclose anything about the

carbon footprint, the core operation and sp360 stands for the basic notion that large corporations should be transparent about the carbon footprint. it makes all the sense in the world and very common sense but is controversial. any time you are proposing a policy that is going to make real change and that will change behavior because we know that when corporations have to disclose and be transparent and have that kind of accountability, there is going to be opposition. >> we have to provide technical assistance to comply with the state legislation sb1383 which requires them to have a food donation program. we keep the edible food local. and we are not composting it because we don't want to compost edible food. we want that food to get eaten within san francisco and feed folks in need.

it is very unique in san francisco we have such a broad and expansive education program for the city. but also that we have partners in government and nonprofit that are dedicated to this work. at san francisco unified school district, we have a sustainability office and educators throughout the science department that are building it into the curriculum. making it easy for teachers to teach about this. we work together to build a pipeline for students so that when they are really young in pre-k, they are just learning about the awe and wonder and beauty of nature and they are connecting to animals and things they would naturally find love and affinity towards. as they get older, concepts that keep them engaged like society and people and economics. >> california is experiencing many years of drought. dry periods. that is really hard on farms and is really challenging. compost helps farms get through

these difficult times. how is that? compost is a natural sponge that attracts and retains water. and so when we put compost around the roots of plants, it holds any moisture there from rainfall or irrigation. it helps farms make that corner and that helps them grow for food. you can grow 30% more food in times of drought in you farm naturally with compost. farms and cities in california are very hip now to this fact that creating compost, providing compost to farms helps communities survive and get through those dry periods. >> here is the thing. soil health, climate health, human health, one conversation. if we grow our food differently, we can capture all that excess carbon in the atmosphere and store it in unlimited quantities in the soil, that will create nutrient dense foods that will take care of most of our civilized diseases. so it's one conversation.

people have to understand that they are nature. they can't separate. we started prowling the high plains in the 1870s and by the 1930s, 60 year, we turned it into a dust bowl. that is what ignorance looks like when you don't pay attention to nature. nature bats last. so people have to wake up. wake up. compost. >> it is really easy to get frustrated because we have this belief that you have to be completely sustainable 24/7 in all aspects of your life. it is not about being perfect. it is about making a change here, a change there in your life. maybe saying, you know what? i don't have to drive to that particular place today. today i am going to take the bus or i'm going to walk. it is about having us is stainable in mind. that is -- it is about having sustainability in mind. that is how we move the dial. you don't have to be perfect all the time.

>> san francisco has been and will continue to be one of the greener cities because there are communities who care about protecting a special ecosystem and habitat. thinking about the history of the ohlone and the native and indigenous people who are stewards of this land from that history to now with the ambitious climate action plan we just passed and the goals we have, i think we have a dedicated group of people who see the importance of this place. and who put effort into building an infrastructure that actually makes it possible. >> we have a long history starting with the gold rush and the anti-war activism and that is also part of the environmental movement in the 60s and 70s. and of course, earth day in 1970 which is huge. and i feel very privileged to work for the city because we are on such a forefront of environmental issues, and we get calls from all over the world really to get information. how do cities create waste

programs like they do in san francisco. we are looking into the few which you are and we want innovation. we want solutions. >> brainchild the executive director 6 housing clinic in the neighborhood for it 90 years and talking about the history like the first web about family history and a lot of the clinicians found with a group of

the community members. with the owner of cadillac the housing on the west coast and the tenderloin is a permanent climax of history of the neighborhood and the community art gorilla for whatever reason artists in the neighborhood. and we do public events as well as walk in (unintelligible) for residents we have been known for has nothing to do with historically artist surveys and that makes us very unique and work producing about the cafe and a riot happened in the neighborhood in 1966 helping us on market street

year-round indefinitely we think that the arts is an incredible way of experiencing history and really helps people think of themselves as history persons and especially for the house play really a part of the - and think that is generates for the - we are aware the art is important for people and important for the community mba and can be a really assessable and engaging way to see history well. >> those are the ways as the art and history you're not going to see emotionally in the

>> i don't think you need to be an expert to look around and see the increasing frequency of fires throuutcalifornia. they are continuing at an ever-increasing rate every summer, and as we all know, the drought continues and huge shortages of water right now. i don't think you have to be an expert to see the impact. when people create greenhouse gases, we are doing so by different activities like burning fossil fuels and letting off carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we also do this with food waste.

when we waste solid food and leave it in the landfill, it puts methane gas into the atmosphere and that accelerates the rate at which we are warming our planet and makes all the effects of climate change worse. the good news is there are a lot of things that you can be doing, particularly composting and the added benefit is when the compost is actually applied to the soil, it has the ability to reverse climate change by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil and the t radios. and there is huge amount of science that is breaking right now around that. >> in the early 90s, san francisco hired some engineers to analyze the material san francisco was sending to landfill. they did a waste characterization study, and that showed that most of the material san francisco was sending to

landfill could be composted. it was things like food scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells and sticks and leaves from gardening. together re-ecology in san francisco started this curbside composting program and we were the first city in the country to collect food scraps separately from other trash and turn them into compost. it turns out it was one of the best things we ever did. it kept 2.5 million tons of material out of the landfill, produced a beautiful nutrient rich compost that has gone on to hundreds of farms, orchards and vineyards. so in that way you can manage your food scraps and produce far less methane. that is part of the solution. that gives people hope that we're doing something to slow down climate change. >> i have been into organic farming my whole life. when we started planting trees, it was natural to have compost

from re-ecology. compost is how i work and the soil biology or the microbes feed the plant and our job as regenerative farmers is to feed the microbes with compost and they will feed the plant. it is very much like in business where you say take care of your employees and your employees will take carolinas of your customers. the same thing. take care of the soil microbes and soil life and that will feed and take care of the plants. >> they love compost because it is a nutrient rich soil amendment. it is food for the soil. that is photosynthesis. pulling carbon from the atmosphere. pushing it back into the soil where it belongs. and the roots exude carbon into the soil. you are helping turn a farm into a carbon sink. it is an international model. delegations from 135 countries have come to study this program. and it actually helped inspire a new law in california, senate bill 1383.

which requires cities in california to reduce the amount of compostable materials they send to landfills by 75% by 2025. and san francisco helped inspire this and this is a nation-leading policy. >> because we have such an immature relationship with nature and the natural cycles and the carbon cycles, government does have to step in and protect the commons, which is soil, ocean, foryes, sir, and so forth. -- forest, and so fors. we know that our largest corporations are a significant percentage of carbon emission, and that the corporate community has significant role to play in reducing carbon emissions. unfortunately, we have no idea and no requirement that they disclose anything about the carbon footprint, the core operation and sp360 stands for the basic notion that large

corporations should be transparent about the carbon footprint. it makes all the sense in the world and very common sense but is controversial. any time you are proposing a policy that is going to make real change and that will change behavior because we know that when corporations have to disclose and be transparent and have that kind of accountability, there is going to be opposition. >> we have to provide technical assistance to comply with the state legislation sb1383 which requires them to have a food donation program. we keep the edible food local. and we are not composting it because we don't want to compost edible food. we want that food to get eaten within san francisco and feed folks in need. it is very unique in san francisco we have such a broad and expansive education program for the city. but also that we have partners

in government and nonprofit that are dedicated to this work. at san francisco unified school district, we have a sustainability office and educators throughout the science department that are building it into the curriculum. making it easy for teachers to teach about this. we work together to build a pipeline for students so that when they are really young in pre-k, they are just learning about the awe and wonder and beauty of nature and they are connecting to animals and things they would naturally find love and affinity towards. as they get older, concepts that keep them engaged like society and people and economics. >> california is experiencing many years of drought. dry periods. that is really hard on farms and is really challenging. compost helps farms get through these difficult times. how is that? compost is a natural sponge that attracts and retains water. and so when we put compost around the roots of plants, it

holds any moisture there from rainfall or irrigation. it helps farms make that corner and that helps them grow for food. you can grow 30% more food in times of drought in you farm naturally with compost. farms and cities in california are very hip now to this fact that creating compost, providing compost to farms helps communities survive and get through those dry periods. >> here is the thing. soil health, climate health, human health, one conversation. if we grow our food differently, we can capture all that excess carbon in the atmosphere and store it in unlimited quantities in the soil, that will create nutrient dense foods that will take care of most of our civilized diseases. so it's one conversation. people have to understand that they are nature. they can't separate. we started prowling the high

plains in the 1870s and by the 1930s, 60 year, we turned it into a dust bowl. that is what ignorance looks like when you don't pay attention to nature. nature bats last. so people have to wake up. wake up. compost. >> it is really easy to get frustrated because we have this belief that you have to be completely sustainable 24/7 in all aspects of your life. it is not about being perfect. it is about making a change here, a change there in your life. maybe saying, you know what? i don't have to drive to that particular place today. today i am going to take the bus or i'm going to walk. it is about having us is stainable in mind. that is -- it is about having sustainability in mind. that is how we move the dial. you don't have to be perfect all the time. >> san francisco has been and will continue to be one of the greener cities because there are communities who care about protecting a special ecosystem

and habitat. thinking about the history of the ohlone and the native and indigenous people who are stewards of this land from that history to now with the ambitious climate action plan we just passed and the goals we have, i think we have a dedicated group of people who see the importance of this place. and who put effort into building an infrastructure that actually makes it possible. >> we have a long history starting with the gold rush and the anti-war activism and that is also part of the environmental movement in the 60s and 70s. and of course, earth day in 1970 which is huge. and i feel very privileged to work for the city because we are on such a forefront of environmental issues, and we get calls from all over the world really to get information. how do cities create waste programs like they do in san francisco. we are looking into the few which you are and we want innovation. we want solutions.

special commission meeting today if we could go ahead and my name is joaquin torres president of the commission and we are ready to call roll for today's meeting friday, january 13th at 3:07 p.m. yes, starting off with president walking towards president