february 18th 2025. regular meeting of the municipal transportation agency board of directors. and parking authority commission to order secretary silva please call the roll before i call the roll i did want to announce that a side letter with t w local 250 a was sunshine at the january 21st meeting and while it was announced at that meeting that the ci letter would be considered today on february

18th. that item is now proposed to be heard at the march 4th board meeting. board meeting the side letter and other information including the costing summary continue to be available to the public on the sfo website at sfo taken aside letters and with that the roll call director chen present chen present director hemminger hemminger present director henderson henderson president director anz present anz present director coquina here kahana president chair tarlov here fellow present for the record i note that director hensley is attending this meeting remotely. director lindsay 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 on item for discussion and vote pursuant to admin code section

67. 10b and d as to whether to invoke the attorney client privilege and conduct a closed session conference with legal counsel government code section 54957.6 and american section 67. 10e as to whether to invoke the attorney client privilege and conduct a closed session conference with a labor negotiator and or designated representatives we will now open public comment for item number four. 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. >> i do have two speaker cards alito, dupri and theory you've been throughout ms. okay. >> if your close station doesn't include the the total by guts of any qr code the learning i could get three of

your cell phones your soul under arrest is not going to be freed just one point of details to remind you something you and persons of san franciscans don't like when was the 20% remaining dissolved and then certified widow honored like jeffrey your predecessor judy you can't stop the revolution which i declared open last the 28th of january in front of the board of supervisors which consists in reuniting humanity with his fellow creatures all living spaces. everything else is about this business club is other. >> this is a chance of the cost

of humanity with the precedent set in san francisco cisco incidence i'll be good 35 seconds i think for now it's all right. >> thank you next week for thank you good afternoon to all over the members alita to proof for the record she and her team folds as i speak on the matter of public employee appointment for a new director of transportation. i don't know where you are in your job search. >> i asked this though i want to director of transportation who's going to approach several perspectives. one is a very broad perspective

of the importance of public transportation. i would like to see someone who has deep knowledge of public transportation which is the the busses and the trains and our cable car system. >> but but really the busses and the trains we are a transit first city. i would like to see a director of transport zation who is approachable. i try to speak at these meetings when i can someone who will remember the importance of diverse communities and the disability community. >> when i think of in new york they're building 300 new accessible subway stations probably the biggest ada project the world has ever seen . i would like to see a director who will remember those who are

often not seen or heard. >> i would like to see a director willing to engage with other systems not just systems in the bay area but other systems such as what we have and other big cities like chicago and washington dc and los angeles and new york where they have a subway with a capital s most of all i want our new director of transportation that you choose to reflect that muni is for everyone. >> thank you. >> thank you. any other speakers seeing none. >> we will now close public comment. may i have a motion and a second to go into closed session so move that secretary silva please call the roll on the motion to go into closed session director chin i need director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson i director lindsay wright cia director kahana i you know i chaired our love i tarlov i

thank you. >> the board will now go into closed session. we will ask all members of the public to exit the room the remainder of item five places ym five announcement of closed session the board met in closed session and took action on items three and four and took no action on item five places you an item number six motion to disclose or not disclose the information discussed in closed session colleagues may i have a motion and a second to disclose not disclose. item three a motion to disclose secretary silva please call the roll on the motion to disclose the action for item three director chen i chennai director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson director hindi ai india director karina tarlov hi tala i thank you. the motion passes.

the board met in closed session and voted unanimously on item three to settle the matter. >> secretary silva or colleagues may i have a motion to disclose not disclose four item four motion to discontinue a second i action item for motion disclose second secretary silva please call the roll and the motion to disclose action for item four director chen i chen i director hemminger hemminger i director henderson henderson i director linzy i india director kahana kahana i chair tarlov i tarlov i thank you that motion passes . the board met in closed session and voted unanimously at item four to appoint julie kirschbaum as the director of transportation subject to a contract to be negotiated and approved at a subsequent meeting. >> thank you. thank you.

colleagues, may i have a motion in a second to disclose or not disclose? for item four. item five pardon me? motion not to disclose item five second secretary silva, please call the roll and the motion to not disclose item five director chen i chennai director hemminger i hemminger i director henderson henderson i director lindsey high india director kahana i cookie and i chair tarlov i tarlov i thank you with that motion passes next item that yes secretary silva please call the next item places you on item number seven approval of minutes for the february 4th regular meeting directors are there any changes to the minutes? all right. >> may i have a motion and a second to oh, we'll now open public comment for item seven. >> 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. any speakers for this item the minutes can come up to the podium at this time seeing none we'll now close public comment. colleagues is there a motion in a second motion to approve that ? >> secretary silva please call the roll on the motion to approve the minutes. director chen i and i director hemminger hemminger director henderson henderson i director lindsey i hear director kahana i and i chair tarlov i part of i the minutes are approved secretary silva please call the next item places you on item eight communications i have none secretary silva please call the next item places you on item number nine the directors report is in order. >> time to be asked to lead the

sfm to i'm i'm just so humbled and excited to receive support from mayor lori this entire board so many community leaders and members of the public and i'm committed to live up to the high expectations that we all have for our transportation system. >> i also want to take this opportunity to thank and to acknowledge the incredible staff at s.f. of mta. nothing that i do as director as possible without the work of our operators and supervisors and trainers, our parking control officers, everybody and our maintenance and custodial staff planners, engineers, schedulers, admin staff it it is a truly

incredible place. the mta team they they show up for each other and they show up for the residents and the visitors and the businesses of san francisco. and i am so proud of everything that they accomplish in often under difficult conditions. >> so you know in in this role i will always have their needs front of mind as i know the board does as well. i truly believe that the economic recovery of our entire region depends on a strong and thriving muni system which our amazing staff make possible and i will fight on behalf of our employees and our city to really ensure we find the resources that we need. i pursued a career in transportation because i got to do work that mattered

and connecting people, creating opportunity access is work that i'm passionate about when we deliver high quality muni service we're modeling what it looks like to have an equitable and inclusive city and when we reduce how long it takes somebody to get to work or school it gives them more time with their families and more time to do the things that they love. over the past six weeks i've focused on a few things you know, getting to know mayor lurie and his team, understanding his priorities, doing deep listening especially with community members. i focus on staff stability and agency funding. >> i'm really excited by the strong focus that mayor lurie is placing on public safety

and responding to the needs of a 24 seven city. that's something that you hear me talk about a lot about as well. the muni system runs 24 seven traffic safety runs 24 seven and we've already gotten some i think important feedback from from mayor lurie including looking at how we're maintaining our transit shelters on the weekends. so we've already increased cleaning on the weekends in response to that feedback and we're going to continue to look for opportunities to support all of the public safety initiatives and this idea of 24/7 service being responsive to customer needs has been a key part of our transit success and it will remain a high priority for me in this new role. >> but i think part of being responsive is acknowledging where we still have work to do . i pay attention to the comments at the s.f. mta board meeting.

i read all of the emails that we receive and despite the fact that you know we've hit a high watermark for muni and customer satisfaction, i know that there's a lot of people that are still frustrated, frustrated with the agency and frustrated with some of our work. i want people to understand that i'm committed to finding solutions that work for everyone. i really believe in co-creation and collaboration and and it's important to me that people feel that the mta is working for them. i want to rebuild the trust that san franciscans have for our agency and i think part of how we do that is acknowledging that people in san francisco are not defined by their transportation choices and in fact most people in san francisco are making a lot of different choices on how they

get around. >> nobody is just a biker or just a muni rider or just a driver. i'm an example of that. you know i take muni to work except on the days that i drive my daughter to school and i walk to most of my meetings during the day i walked here but when i have to get out to one of our bus divisions i'll often drive on the weekends. you know my family is really excited when we have time to ride a bike or walk to a new neighborhood and we also rely on transit and driving and taxis and and rideshare. >> so i'm trying to bring to this role how i get around because i think it's indicative that we're all making choices that work best for us all the time. >> my approach is that it's not nor has it ever been a zero sum game. we must find solutions that involve everyone no matter how they get around and we need to

give everyone great choices on how they move around san francisco and we want to continue to improve options like transit and biking because more efficient modes help reduce congestion for drivers and they help our city grow to help address affordability and because not everyone has access to a car or the ability to drive. >> in this role i will work to deliver a transportation system that provides a high level of safety and customer service for everyone and i look forward to discussing both with the board and with community members what that's going to look like. thank you again for this opportunity that you have instilled in me. >> i am just beyond beyond honored and excited and now for

the directors report on the theme of deep listening. last week i announced that we're going to change the way we implement the california daylighting law ab 413. the new state law prohibits parking within 20ft of the approach side of a crosswalk. to improve visibility at intersections for both people walking and driving. daylighting is a proven safety technique. studies have shown that it can reduce collisions by up to 30%. >> and as a result we've implemented it in a lot of san francisco neighborhoods particularly downtown our commercial district neighborhood kids like the tenderloin on the high injury network. but we hadn't envisioned implementing it citywide until the law moved forward. >> and as i kind of got acclimated in this role and i was able to meet with dozens of

community members to understand concerns that topic of how we were approaching this this change in law, you know, kept kept coming up. what i heard most from people is that they didn't think it would be fair to be ticketed at an intersection that didn't have a red curb. and that made a lot of sense to me. so we decided to change our plan. last week we announced that we will not be ticketing people who park at gray curbs but we are going to fast track painting curbs at intersections continuing with the high injury network and schools and then working to address the the entire city within the next 18 months. >> one of the things that i've been emphasizing doing is even though we're not going to be issuing tickets, neighbors can help make families safer by

abiding by this law. now the main reason that daylighting is so effective is that people who use wheelchairs and children are harder to see past a parked car. so avoiding parking at the approach curb is something you can immediately do to support your neighbors and your community. no fines will be issued at unmarked curbs but we will continue to issue warnings as well as information campaign educating people about this important safety measure. i really want to thank the board of supervisors and other elected officials for their support and guidance supervisor walton and chan in particular for putting this issue on my radar and getting the discussion started. i also want to thank victoria's engineering planning and operations team for looking at this in a new way for figuring out how to expedite delivery and reduce costs

through efficiency measures. >> the next topic i want to talk about is the regional funding measure. senator wiener and senator oregon have introduced senate bill 63 which serves as enabling legislation for the transportation revenue measure for a transportation revenue measure. >> the bill does not include any details yet as the authors intend to have the proposed legislation have input from stakeholders throughout the region and is looking very much to the consensus building process that mtc has underway in preparation for the legislation. >> mtc conducted a poll of bay area voters and shared those results last week. they looked at three funding options all of which polled above 50%. but none of which polled at the two thirds level pointing to the need for a citizen measure.

the half cent sales tax and the option that would have a half cent sales tax in some regions but allow counties like san francisco to have a higher rate pulled the highest. >> the poll also gave i think some very interesting information in general about bay area voters and in general that voter sentiment is recovering but still has quite a ways to go. >> voter optimism about bay area's direction is starting to return to pre-pandemic levels. 42% of respondents believe according to the poll that things are going in the right direction while 55% believe things are off or on the wrong track. >> the majority still holds a pessimist view but is projecting in a positive direction. affordability was the top

concern among bay area voters with 22% identify buying affordable housing as the most important problem that is significantly financially burden faced by the bay area. this is a lending to sensitivity about the overall tax burden when why people oppose that. when asked why people oppose the tax measure a reoccurring theme is just that the high cost of living and the inability to afford any additional taxes. >> on the positive side, 45% of voters rate making public transit faster, more reliable, safer and easier to use as extremely important. and 1 in 5 voters have heard or seen something recently about the lack of funding or the risks of public transit cuts and there is a need for increased funding for public transit with 67% of voters believing it needs more money. so i think we learned a lot

from this poll and will continue to work with our regional partners on funding. >> the next thing i want to talk about is the cable car shiv replacement project. we included some photos because it's pretty hard to describe what is essentially a giant piece of infrastructure that our own crews are restoring and putting in the ground. the cable car shivs are a huge wheel that guides the underground cable through a pulley system and they obviously cannot be bought off the shelf. so what we do is we remove one, we restore it and then we put in the the the upgraded or rebuilt version using this leapfrogging method. on each workday crews will use cranes and other machinery to to remove and then to restore the work will take place from february to may. the construction approach was

co-created with cable car stakeholders. those business organizations that benefit most significantly from the work of the cable car including the union square alliance, the fisherman's wharf community business district and sf travel. and having their feedback i think allowed us to shape this program in a way that is going to have minimal impacts on downtown recovery. we will have 20 dates but there will never be a time where there isn't one cable car running. additionally the work will happen during the weekdays and we will complete it before the summer season. please visit s.f. mpca slash cable car upgrades for the latest schedules and many thanks to the to the community partners who helped us as we shape this work.

and thank you to the incredible cable car staff who are doing things that i think no other no other transit system in this country is undertaking. next i want to talk about the clipper start program mostly because i want to help get the word out. the clipper start program is funded by mtc and it was implemented in august of 2020. it provides regional transit riders including muni riders who are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level a 50% discount on single ride fares so not only for muni but for bart for ac transit for all of our regional partners. this clipper start. to date there's about 47,000 bay area residents including almost 20,000 san francisco residents that are participating in this program. but we would like to see more participation.

the clipper start cars.com is where folks can learn about the program. applicants must provide a benefits card for example in eb t or medi-cal or proof of income documentation at the time of application. the reason i'm emphasizing it is because we're starting to see about the same number of people using this one time. as people use our lifeline pass and i think the reason for that is like like many users people are not traveling five days a week or six days a week on muni but making multiple trips a week. and so for those folks i think this is a really great option. i appreciate all of the work that our community partners have done to help get the word out and we want to continue to push this really important program. >> another project that we're excited about is the street

safety project we just completed in the tenderloin. >> our street operations paint sign and parking meter crews worked with s.f. pd, with public works and other agencies to support a clean streets initiative on sixth street in soma. crews have been working on refreshing curb paint abating graffiti and traffic control devices and upkeep of signage and delineate ours. we appreciate s.f. pd's full support and collaboration to keep our staff safe while they were doing this work and we set a goal to complete all of our work at the site before the nba all-star game and we achieved it. >> separately we got an urgent request to refresh curb paint near the ferry building and we were able to achieve that as well. >> this was all i think supportive of the last thing that i want to share which is an event read out. we had a really busy weekend. >> i want to first express

gratitude to brant jones who was the acting transportation director allowing me to have some really important time with my family. he and hundreds of sfm t employees were out making sure that the weekend was a success. san francisco hosted two large events february 13th to 16th was the nba all-star game and on february. on that saturday was the chinese new year festival and parade. the eyes of the world were on us and the city was on millions of screens across the globe. the press conference leading up to the event emphasized that muni was the way to get around and i am so proud that we delivered on that call. >> we had a number of transit reroutes and street closures

which we do every year for the parade but we had some additional security measures considering the high volume at the chase center. there were also events at the oakland arena and various hotels that we needed to make sure were all coordinated. the city very much approached this event as if we needed to be ready for all things including activating all of the operation centers. and so that was also a good test of all of our inter-agency communications and readiness and we provided a lot of supplemental service to make sure we could handle all of the extra rides. i wanted to thank all our pcsos our transit inspector was our transit operators, the temporary sign shop and all the other staff who worked tirelessly to make this event possible and to make our city shine. we got really positive feedback

from the nba and i'm really proud of our work. >> finally on to closing notes i want to close with a reminder that the central subway water mitigation work is scheduled for february 26 to march 14th. we chose these dates after working with stakeholders to make sure we were minimize impacts to businesses and visitors and will have a full readout on that work at a later board meeting. secondly, we will be discussing the biking and rolling plan at the next board meeting as well . >> that concludes my report. thank you director. thank you director kirschbaum. >> we'll now open public comment for the directors report. >> members of the public wishing to provide public comment on the director's report 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 speaker cards theory anthony ballester, jeff moore, matt lowe and alida dupree. >> >> you do know that the romans invented the circus to distract the population from what was going on which was important. some spots today are so you know, it doesn't work. >> so you have safety. >> if you use responsibly and critical thinking, that's how you get safety. now it's required some education not miss education. we didn't question. it seems you went for the charity. yeah. it's a trap. the rabbit gets the carrots, isn't the trap. >> now guess what? if you think the trouble easier to save you you are less intelligent than the rabbit.

>> you are in it. how do you get out of it now? >> take the money. no, it's not what i'm telling you. i declared a revolution here. it's going to be as peaceful as possible. you can't stop it. this guy's i'm not only with me. not only this guy's always me but now soon. all living spaces. >> if you want to be part of them living because what else? i'm going to say hello during the general public comments. >> so you know we don't want all these bikes things will you going to have to undo what you did? >> you don't understand exactly what's going. >> step by step i apologize jan i like the judi's i don't know but i don't know you know. thank you. your next speaker. >> good afternoon, directors. madam chair to cushman. my name is anthony ballester and president of chancery

workers union local 258 because you know that in and i've known julie congratulations and known julie since 2014 when i became union rep flynn division. she's always respected me show me respect always a nice person always have a smile. and personally i like her. and now it's business. we have as we for it mentioned transit operators. she finally mentioned it at the end of her speech. thank you. you know, because transit does not move itself, it takes our members. you know, we operate busses, cable car trains, you know, trolleys. and you know, we're out every day. and i want to speak about what's going on with the agency. it's a transit update that for many years as far as i know that that remembers go back to the old country. and they need maybe five, six, seven weeks of vacation. and these operators have been working out here in the city for 15, 20, 25 years. now the agency is limiting them.

it's going to limit them to four weeks, you know, a year. the crew tended to get there don't take vacations for three, four years. so they can have the time to take their family to the whole country. and now the agency wants to limit that time to 4 to 4 weeks. and that's not fair. this is the first time they've done this. they tried to do this last year. and we fought them on that. so what the directors know that operators have to be respected especially put in 2040, 2041 guy has 40 years in there. so anyway but i wanted to what was going on because this is a transit update like you said on the agenda. >> so thank very much. and i thank the board. thank you, judy. well, good. okay. thank you. >> mr. ballester, thank you very much for your comment. director jones is here. would you would you would you like to. director jones, would you like to address mr. ballesteros

comment? thank you so much for your comment. yes, thank you. i would like to address that. i'm currently we are in the process of meeting with the unions to discuss our proposal for a procedure for a vacation sign up. the mta is not proposing a cap on use of vacation time. we're just proposing a process . yes. in which case everyone per the city charter is able to get their annual accrual so that is fair and equitable. we've also been working with their union through consistent meetings through the mba process to hear their concerns about what our proposed process is. we've provided answers. we provided data and we're ongoing in our communications with them. the key to remember of all of this is we're continuing to talk and find solutions for any

concerns that are being brought to our attention. so while i understand that there's a lot of concern about change, we do understand that it's important to work with our our colleagues in the unions to come to come to a solution that works for everyone. thank you very much. >> next speaker i have speaker cards for jeff matlow and alito dupree. again this is for item nine the directors report any items that director kirschbaum has spoken about. >> thank you. i was going to get in line but for me to go first. thank you. my name is pete wilson. i'm executive vice president cw local 258. thank you for brant and thank you for anthony for their for their good words. i just want to bring up that this idea that we can only take two weeks three x or four weeks was brought up in contract negotiations in 2022 and we declined. then they brought it up in 2023 and stated that some operators

were not getting the opportunity like all the weeks were filled. we went ahead and got sign ups from each division cable car had if i was a cable car operator i would had 20 available weeks if i was the last cable car operator and every division had even more than that they withdrew it and 2024 they introduced it again. the labor director said there doesn't have to be a problem just the potential for a problem instead of having it mandated mou sign up in january. >> we just missed that and now what they're doing is is adding these many sign ups. they did one for february. they just put one in for march. we requested that the march 1st go to april 4th y which would be two days and 2 or 3 days in march and april. it's san francisco unified school district spring break. okay my kids don't go to s.f. usd anymore but we have 42% of our operators who live in the city and county of san francisco and it's a popular week to sign up for. >> and so that just doesn't

work for us. so what i did is i brought the city charter so you can see that we are 9163. it's just like any other employee gets two weeks, three weeks or four weeks. >> our contract says the city seniority will prevail in determining the length of a vacation and the preference of the sign up. so can you have it for three weeks? four weeks? five weeks? six weeks if you roll it over. >> like the charter says you can. the s.f. mta is trying to tell our operators that they can only use 13 sick days if they use 14 sick days they're brought in for a conference. >> now it's like you can only i could only use my three weeks and that's just not working for us. >> i brought these in for you for each for each of you to have one. >> and i just wanted to tell you we should be able to sign up for our vacation days on floating holidays and holidays. we were allowed to do that on columbus day slash indigenous people's day. >> you're taking the ss mta took it away. thank you. >> next speaker again this is for item nine. i was sorry sir. you're speaking out of order.

>> thank you. next speaker thank you chair joanna tarlov and member selita dupre. for the record, she and her team foltz. yes, i did hear my name called. thank you. congratulations to julie. i think julie certainly represents things that i've said over time and what i'm looking for in a director of transportation and i've known julie for quite a long time not just here but at clipper executive board meetings. that's very, very important. clipper executive board. i go to their meetings. i'd encourage you to check them out, read the agendas or even watch the videos if you can't make them in person. >> and but but most of all, what i like about julie is julie is always respected me as the person i am. julie's very good at respecting people for who they are and welcoming people into music so i'm very, very grateful for that. >> so thank you for your

decision and there's a lot going on and i stayed away from the crowds and i did get to enjoy a bit of free muni on sunday. don't get to see that very often but i went to the fourth and king i got off caltrain and they had signs up and people there telling us that we had free muni just like back in september or we had a weekend of free caltrain when they put the electric trains into service. >> so we do have a lot going on. i did see the street dug up at california on the california cable car line near the embarcadero. so hopefully we'll get that fixed up soon so i can enjoy the cable car again. but really i do ask that julie share with other transit systems not just here at bay area but perhaps in new york where they where they have a

subway with a capital a big capital s where i come from. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker for the directors report. >> okay. thank you. i'm a resident of the richmond district and it right after the covid period there was a different group sitting up there and i tried to understand what the factors relationship was formerly with the san francisco bicycle coalition. >> i was an organizer. is this is your comment going to be really related to director kirschbaum or is it more suited for general? i think so because it. yes, it is the.

so this was something. so my question is now that you're in there i can't find any financial reports audited financial reports for the s.f. mta for either fiscal year 2023 or fiscal year 2024, i doubt that 24 is available but i would assume that 2023 is i can't find them on the website. i think that's related to her report. >> can someone advise me? i don't want a powerpoint presentation. i just want the equivalent of a 10-k report and if somebody could tell me if it exists and where i could find it. >> so hopefully one of you could answer a later item on our agenda is the finance report and our cfo will be here for that and i'm sure she will be able to i didn't see i'm sorry is it on here on says the agenda item 14 sorry item 1414

i see 12 must keep on going but thank you very much i look forward to hearing where i can find an audited financial report. >> thank you. next speaker good afternoon director all of the directors and congratulations director kirschbaum we look forward to working with you. my name is jodi medeiros and the executive director of walks here in cisco and i thank the director for her update on the city's daylighting plan to keep us all safe in the intersection. i don't need to remind us that 2024 was a very deadly year for pedestrians. the deadliest 2007 with 24 people losing their lives and daylighting is going to ensure that everybody has clear sight lines at intersections, pedestrians and drivers. we have to keep driving that home. it's really great for drivers too and it's going to reduce crashes by 30%. this has been one of san francisco's initiatives for way long time even working with

then supervisor norman e because of the effectiveness of this tool. san francisco now has a state law behind you which we're excited about and san francisco may be the only city in california that's taking the big step and painting curbs red because all drivers understand that red curbs mean don't park their we support you in moving very quickly and we're very happy that you're going to start with school zones first to keep our kids safe. they've already identified funding for this and that you've operationalized the red paint so now we are really looking to you to make this happen. the 18 months that you say you can do it in we're behind you, let's get it done. we know that this is going to be a game changer for safety and we're asking to almost go an extra step and really protecting those spaces with posts bike racks, planters to really prevent people from parking in those spaces. if the city doesn't have the funding to do this, i know that

residents are chomping at the bit to green their neighborhoods and to put these green corners. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker afternoon board my name is cyrus hall. i'm local sustainability or sustainable transportation advocate. i want to start by congratulating director kirschbaum. >> congratulations. your management through the pandemic was transformative to muni as a service and it is why muni has the highest ranking rating it has ever had in public surveys. and so i really look forward to seeing what comes next. i just have a very minor comment on daylighting which is first of all i do like the new direction but i want to bring up another daylighting effort that i'm afraid has maybe fallen by the wayside which is the effort to daylight bus stops. i have recently been flying throughout busses bus routes that will possibly see cuts this summer and there are still

a huge number of bus stops both flags and non flags that still see cars parked in front of them. and that is a significant accessibility issue. so i'd love to see that also on that accelerated timeline. >> thank you. >> thank you. and next speaker. >> hey, good afternoon. my name is hymie viloria with san francisco transit riders and a tenderloin resident. first off, congratulations director kirschbaum did remind me that the reason why i'm doing public transit advocacy was because of julie. when she told us that they weren't restoring 231 but i also would like to appreciate the time that julie offered me but over over a year ago where she walked around the neighborhood with me and she was genuinely interested about our needs it was in on a time scale. she took as much time as she

needed and so you know that always kind of sticks to me. so you know, congratulations. and looking forward to what you have for the agency. >> and then over the weekend was great to ride nini without having to tag of course i was, you know, kind of checking to see if they actually turned off the little machines and they did. and so there was one way i had to tell somebody to not tag but i think you know that's another good example when we have a fully funded transit system and that people can use to get around. so yeah, well thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon everyone. my name is sanada and i work for mta. i'm currently a transit supervisor and also the executive vice president for local 200. congratulations julie. i've been with the agency for 18 years and i remember julie as a scheduler and seeing her name on all the bulletins as things with ever evolving holes like this lady and i have grown to build a relationship and a rapport with her.

so congratulations. i can't wait to see what you bring forward in listening to the directors report i do have some concerns as a local 200 representative and also as a supervisor looking for some transparency and some communication or to establish some pathways for us to be able to communicate as it relates to some of the issues that you brought about specifically working under difficult conditions, we've brought it many issues from local 200 to management to try to address some of our issues as it relates to our vacation. piggybacking off of 250 m and here in mr. brant jones who sat with us during contract negotiations we fought we stayed long through our last day of negotiations to establish a process that is still not being followed. our vacation sign up was supposed to have taken place and we're currently past due and we also worked very hard to establish a voluntary transfer process which is a sign up where up where supervisors are able to bid on their work locations. we're currently seven months past due and have have had very little to minimal interactions with management in order to try

to get this resolved. so in hearing how we're looking to address some of the issues as it relates to the public, local 200 is reaching out to you to try to ensure that some of these issues are addressed when it comes to the staff who currently keep the agency working and keep the agency moving in conjunction with 250 and in hearing how the customer the customers are often frustrated our staff is too when not being able to have a vacation sign up and not being able to have a bid to pick a schedule and we've currently been on our current schedule for over four years of which it's three and that's a very long time to be stuck to one position. we tried to reach out to management including mr. jones to try to figure out a way to have it in-house which will give us give our members some sort of ease when it comes to their scheduling. >> so we look forward to working with you. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon everyone. congratulations julie. a big honor and a surprise coming out of the closed session.

>> so wonderful to hear it. i really appreciated that you said you want to make san francisco work for everyone and for all modes of transportation because i think the vast majority i mean 70% of san franciscans have cars and need them for many, many things. so i hope that we are going to make it safe and better for everyone. i also think it's pretty clear from the boatload of evidence that we have now that vision zero did not work. so i think all this street redesign has caused more problems than it solves. >> so i'm really hoping we can have conversations about that and just with regard to the directors report specifically, i remain concerned that i'm not seeing any urgency from this body about and from the director about the $320 million deficit. i urge you to focus on muni to

making muni the best transportation system. prior to the pandemic it was very highly ranked and rated. so let's bring that back and let's stop wasting money on other things. there was a lot of money that can be cut out of this budget. you have almost 6000 employees in a town of 810,000 people. it's time to signal efficiently cut the budget and all of the overhead and i mean it's like a $240 million admin budget. why that is where we need to start cutting before you start asking the public to turn over more of our hard earned dollars to fund all these projects that we don't want. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker good afternoon. my name is richard. i am a transit operator here in the city and i'm a resident of the soma neighborhood.

congratulations director kirschbaum and we're glad to have you and i'm here to talk about my personal problem with our vacation sign ups last year we want to bid to camp mather was wonderful. we did. we really enjoyed it while we were there we participated in their raffle. we won another trip for a week this coming summer but i can't bid i can't sign up for my vacation. my daughter is ten. she's having tremendous amounts of anxiety about whether we're going to be able to do this again. it was an extremely wonderful trip for her last year and now my contract is being violated mou rule or section 13 .5. g rule 179 says beginning in january 2025 sign ups reschedule time off including floating holiday shall be held

annually in january of each year. the annual time off period shall be in effect from the first full week of february to the the last full week of january of the following year. operators may use their accrued discretionary paid time off in whatever way they prefer. i can't bid. i can't get a vacation. this is causing problems for all of us. please solve it. thank you. next speaker good afternoon. >> board of directors. my name is clara mobley, director of advocacy at the san francisco bicycle coalition. first and foremost congratulations director kirschbaum we second the other advocates and really look forward to working with you in the future. i wish i was here today giving our organizational support for approving the biking and rolling plan which has now been moved to march 4th. we had every expectation the plans approval would be heard today because it's what the

agency communicated publicly consistently for months leading up to today. we're extremely disappointed with the last minute decision to delay when we knew staff were ready to present the brp for final approval. approving the plan is only the beginning and moving quickly towards implementation is crucial. this unnecessary delay will have consequences for the life saving improvements we have waited too long for already we're very aware that the s.f. mta is facing a massive fiscal shortfall and that today you'll be discussing additional cuts that will be painful and destabilizing. we also know that ignoring the all but finalized and already delayed biking and rolling plan won't improve conditions for people trying to get around our city and failing to prioritize active and sustainable transportation choices will only push more people to become card dependent. delaying the brp approval is a missed opportunity for city leaders to counter disinformation and educate the public that investing in robust transit and in a vision for safe streets are not mutually exclusive and that they are entirely separate funding

sources. the city has invested over $1 million and three years into the biking and rolling plan which will impact how people will get around our city for the years to come. it represents a future of san francisco in which people of all ages and abilities can ride safely. the agency must work towards avoiding the fiscal cliff while also passing and then continuing to strengthen the biking and rolling plan. >> it is the duty of the s.f. mta board of directors and city leadership to do both and to do them simultaneously to make san francisco streets safer for everyone. and as the saying goes we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. thank you. >> thank you. any additional speakers? >> seeing none in the room we do have one accommodation request. >> speaker you've been unmuted . mr. weiner i want to i realize that director kirschbaum has a lot on her plate. it's a massive responsibility

but i would like to know what you are going to do from moderate director kersh from your drive and i'm sure she's aware of the difficulty in getting around the city. >> so i would like to see what is being done for the. i know the outcomes but lack of concern for motorists by this board. the other thing i would like to know is what kind concerns about mta. if that could be clarified i would recommend you approach it. >> thank you. thank you. no additional callers. >> thank you director. do you have any comments or questions regarding the director's report?

oh no. all right. we will move to before we go to the next item which is general public comment to correct. >> it is actually the six report. okay. >> please. secretary silva called the next item. >> very good places you and item ten the citizens advisory council report. >> good afternoon, directors. i am chris arvin. i am the vice chair of the mta citizens advisory council. congratulations. director kirschbaum. we had two motions that i'll share with you today. one was on the biking and rolling plan. so our motion does support the biking and rolling plan and we really appreciate all the hard work that went into defining a vision a north star for a comprehensive network of safe streets as opposed to just having to do sort of one off projects. we did have a couple of notes.

one is that we did want to see more separated bikeways rather than shared bikeways. as the agency goes on in the future and looks to turn this vision into specific projects as well as there was a concept in the plan of all ages and abilities streets and we liked that concept and we know that's kind of defined by nadeau but the sort of specific bar for what qualifies as all ages and abilities we felt like could be a bit higher in terms of having more comfortable streets to meet that definition . our other motion was on the proposals for summer muni service cuts. we did not vote to endorse any specific scenario a, b or c we did not want to be putting, you know, riders against each other saying well you have to lose your line so that this other line doesn't have crowding because what you want to see is the agency exhausting all

possible avenues before cutting muni service. i don't think atu tell you why service cuts are bad. i think we all know that they have the hardest impact on people with the least options. they are bad for the cities recovery in the economy and it hurt trust in the agency to lose a bus line that you just got back 2 or 3 years ago. but we do believe that going into an election next year having to go before our voters to get more funding for the agency, the best way to do that is to go in with a strong muni . we have seen ridership recover to 80% pre-pandemic levels. we have seen some of the highest satisfaction ratings in any recent history and continuing that progress we believe is the best way to win support from voters for more funding to solve these problems ideally by getting the funding from the mayor or board of supervisors or if it needs to be going into the agency

reserves. those are our emotions. happy to take any questions? >> thank you. >> i'd like to now ask the directors if you have any questions or comments for mr. arvind. >> thank you much so much for being here today. just a comment. thank you so much mr. arvind for these comments and for relaying what the cac feels about these difficult choices that we have to make. and so i just you know really celebrate the service that community members put into you know, really taking a deep dive on these matters. you know, as you were looking at different options and not endorsing the three strategies before for us with service cuts but looking at different options. what was the general sentiment of folks in the room in terms of what they were feeling about some of the trade offs? were they more amenable to some of the others if if you know,

funding from the mayor's office was not available or you know that one time funding that that you also articulated was an option that you all surfaced? >> yeah, it's a good question. the citizens advisory council we represent a large diversity of communities so you know we are to by every district in the city as well as appointed from the mayor's office and it is really hard to say well one scenario is better than the other because it's going to impact different communities in different ways. it's really hard to say that well, it's better for one line to have more pass and crowding so that another line cannot be cut. so we really didn't have a discussion of which one is better than the other one. i actually personally tried to avoid that conversation because i don't want to have that conversation until. it is the only last possible option. i do think this exercise was actually a very enlightening thing a good thing for the public to see of what does a 5%

service cut look like because if we're going to have to in the future go look at a 20% service cut a 25% service cut, you can just imagine how bad that will be. >> i also you know, just wanted to give you a little bit more space to speak about the support from the cac, about the biking and rolling plan and like some of the decisions that we have to make about around service cuts. it's also something that impacts different neighborhoods around the city and as you articulated you also the the cac represents folks from different parts of the city and so curious to see what the discussion was there and how you all arrived at a consensus there. >> yeah. >> so on the service cut item we had a unanimous vote on the biking rolling plan. we had a almost unanimous vote. i think there was maybe one no vote. i think what we really like to just seeing that there is a comprehensive vision. we really appreciate that the agency is paying attention to the safety of streets and the

safety of people biking and rolling on the streets. i i guess if you have any sort of clarifications you'd like on specific parts i can try to offer anything we two talked about but i don't have any specific other details that i need to share right now. >> no that's great. no, i just just wanted to see if there's anything that rose to the top for you all in your discussion. but it seems like it was pretty much you all did find some consensus around the topic. again, it's a project that different neighborhoods have felt differently about and so because you all represent different parts of the city, i'm just curious to see if there's one thing that came up over the other. but thank you so much for for presenting this and again thank you so much for your service. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> thank you. directors. >> director hennessy, i just have a quick question if i

could and hello chair vice chair i mean and then you as always for your service. i don't know when your your meeting is in the count in the month of february so i don't know where you are able to say our last meeting we requested some other non-service color options and the staff and i have several for this later on in our agenda and the finance item there were 50 standing those alternatives that the council going about her right so our meetings are on the first thursday of every month so we met on the i believe february sixth and so we did not have any of the non service cut or non muni service cut options presented to us at the time i have seen that there are additional options about the

cac has not had time to discuss those. >> thank you. thank you secretary silver i0i would now like to open public comment for the citizens advisory council report and i would just like to take a moment before we do that and acknowledge that we have a number of young people here in the audience and i want to thank you all for coming to participate in what are very important discussions about our city and how our city works. >> and i you know, i recognize that the cac report opens the door for public comment on a

later item and and and i and that is absolutely fine but i would like to in the interest of folks who maybe need to go home and start on their homework and other important things if we could agree to allow students who might want to make comment regarding the financial report which is coming up which came up with the cac and non-revenue options that are on our agenda, i would like to take a moment right now and invite the young people who would like to make comment on that. >> thank you. then. >> all right. members of the public wishing to provide public comment at this time will have two minutes each. there will be a warning at 30s

and a time when the time is up . i also just would like to remind our members of the audience that the board doesn't tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kinds. this includes clapping or booing or snapping. >> if you want to show support or opposition you may do so silently. it could be with a thumbs up or thumbs down a wave of the hands. >> we thank you for your cooperation. terry may i ask you to allow the youth to speak first? thank you very much. >> yeah. hello and good morning. my name is mimi tolley and i was born and raised in the city. i'm a sixth grader at greenwich village charter school and i am here to speak in support of the school crossing guard program. traffic is dangerous to children like me and public safety is a central my crossing guard and my school. is so nice and does this job so well every day. >> crossing guards encourage

walking and taking the bus. >> thank you. thank you. next week. >> thank you. >> see? and the other i said is right there because no she's not. she doesn't agree. she doesn't understand what she's saying. >> no good. you too. yeah. >> at least you don't read the script. you learned your lesson better. but what is your adversary? >> have you been elected by drawing it? not so everything in the future is by drawing up any part of the government or anything. >> drawing jonathan. there is no selection here for money i would have a. you are good among other people. you are by drawing you understand you've been selected by this guys they're lucky to get lucky. you need to do a good job.

>> see this guys will help you know. good. thank you. next speaker. >> hey, directors dylan fabrice commuting policy manager for san francisco transit riders which is a member of the meeting now and forever campaign. and i'll save the majority of my comments for the upcoming item but i did want to say that san francisco transit riders concurs with the case's report on the service cuts. >> we believe that going into this major budget deficit with cuts, cuts and more cuts is only going to harm the chances of of potentially larger funding sources. >> and yeah we we encourage the board and the agency to work with the board of supervisors and the mayor to find that $15 million rather than doing it through cuts and potentially

using the emergency reserves as a 50 years on reserves to fill in whatever blink can't be found there. >> thank you. thank you. any other speakers for public comment? >> and you could you know, you can make your way up to the podium and both mikes are on if you want to use this this other mike. >> yeah our school's crossing guard sean is a very good crossing guard because he helps keep the people crossing the street safe. if sean were to leave then the people would feel unsafe and unhappy. sean plays a vital role in helping the community stay safe and flourish. >> let's keep sean. yeah.

thank you. >> please can we demonstrate for the children? >> listening to what secretary sylvia said about applause. we all feel very grateful for the for the students who've come today and i hope they know that without the applause. thank you. thank you. seeing no other speakers at this time, right? >> i don't know if the students will stay after this but i just want you to know that i personally have had the opportunity to work with crossing guards in glen park for the glen park elementary school. their names i've forgotten. oh, rhonda and simon and they are people that i personally respect. and i want the students to understand that the adults here

are making very difficult decisions about how we maintain our transportation are taking these issues very, very seriously. and your comments are very much appreciated. thank you. secretary silver, will you please call the next item? >> next item. very good places you on item number 11 new or unfinished business by board members? colleagues, do you have any new or unfinished business for today's agenda? all right. we'll close that item. secretary silva, please call the next item places you on item 12 general public comment. members of the public may address the s.f. mta board of directors on matters that are within the board's jurisdiction and are not on today's calendar. 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. >> i do have speaker cards for theory and nicholas party steve left but he. >> i'm going to keep my glasses. >> if there is something you don't understand. raise your hand. >> the reason why you can't get out of the type you are in i mean you won't be saved by the trouble is because the trapper itself is so unintelligent that it doesn't understand that he fell in a trap set by eternity to challenge itself on his creations. >> it's been a long run. now the chance is for now you can fight it. >> if you do you want be alive in six months. there is going to be a measure attached on all of us. it's going to make l.a. fire

suspect fires like an appetizer . >> it's set for july 5th. yeah, i'm here to watch it. no matter what the budget revolution the name but stands not for the money. >> it stands after that name of the dog in jerusalem. >> jack london's jack london's book that everybody knows is the call of the wild. >> trust me, the kids are going to pay for all these things. >> we don't want the bikes or this. >> you're going to have to undo what you did though. it's financed by whoever did it . how can i put it so i'm the only person that can save you here. it is not even a joke. it is not the time for jokes. she runs are being no doubt. yeah. not to clean someone's school but to responsibility

and critical thinking and beauty. >> you will be i beat the world justify your reason for being on this planet. >> thank you. i do have another speaker card for elita dupree. >> i must thanks again chair janet tarlov and members elita dupree for the record she and her team foltz. you know meetings aunties. i made it today. i'm a person with profound disabilities. and that's why i come to share with you so you could see and hear what it's like for somebody who has challenges and for many who take things in life for granted. some of those things are herculean or monumental or even

existential for me. so i want to have immunity that will be able to ensure safe, timely and affordable service which is why i advocate for these things. >> pause your time. i do hear a chime from the audience area if i could please have that member of the public please silence their device we would appreciate it. thank you. >> go ahead. i think the petitioner okay. thank you. oh, thank you. and i'm very different from from all of you. but i'm still a person who uses muni and sometimes i use other systems. sometimes i use bart within san francisco because it's cheaper cost me $0.90. muni is about 25. >> well when you're a disabled veteran a veteran on a fixed

income you got watch your pennies adds up so i think it's okay for me to use bart in san francisco and i do use waymo and yeah there's a lot of people who don't like waymo. >> oh that's that's that's their issue but but i ask that nobody hold that against me because i feel that i should use whatever i need to do with uber, lyft, electric cars walking and scooters and muni and even renting a car to navigate san francisco. >> so why do i speak of of muni should be for everybody because it should be just as i say that bart is the people system thank you. >> thank you. next speaker hello i'm a meanie operator coming up on two years of service and i'm coming off of three consecutive 11.5 hour

days this weekend providing service for nba all-star weekends and the lunar new year festivities represented by transport workers union local 250 a i would say that one thing that's been made clear to me and the operators who i've gotten the chance to meet is that the decisions about our working conditions are made by people who have never had to drive a bus in san francisco. as operators we want to be able to provide a world class service to the people here but the billionaire first people last agenda behind the budget crisis have left us understaffed, underpaid, overworked and having to put our physical and mental health on the line every day to do our jobs. >> we are the people who muni riders see every day and therefore we are the ones who face the backlash when services get less affordable, less frequent and less accessible. >> and i would encourage the media who has been following the agency's budget crisis to reach out to our union instead of only getting statements from us of mta we are getting

assaulted and harassed. people take out their anger on us over the conditions of public transit that we do not create. gavin newsom shouldn't be able to set foot in san francisco until muni operations are fully funded. there's nothing commonsense about balancing the budget on the backs of working class people who for the most part don't have paychecks that increase with inflation and the rising cost of living. listen to what muni operators are saying when you do i guarantee there will be better public transit for everyone and please stop letting management play games with our vacation time. >> thank you. thank you. >> next speaker good afternoon. >> thank you for your time today. i'm here to comment on the biking and rolling plan which in general mostly works great if you're young and fit and love riding a bike and traffic. but for seniors, for people with small children in tow and for people with disabilities it's a different

story. the biking and rolling plan takes away untold parking spots and blocks a ton of vehicle access and that means that we who rely on cars or caregivers or paratransit would be left stranded and less able to easily do our normal day to day stuff. muni is not known for being on time and when it isn't just hopping on your bike or walking that extra five blocks with your kids or your groceries or both might not be an option. >> instead of rushing through this very flawed biking and rolling plan, let's focus on good governance and responsible government action. s.f. mta should slow down and do a better job of considering the people for whom a car happens to be the safest, most reliable way of getting around the city. please don't make it harder for them. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. hi there.

hi. i wanted to comment on the biking and rolling plan as well. it was express by someone in the audience earlier that this has been in the works for three years. and for that i say whoever is in charge of this should be incredibly embarrassed to put this forward. there is no budget attached to the biking and rolling plan. i've been looking every day to see if the mta website has been updated with a budget. no it has not. there are no metrics attached to the biking or rolling plan meaning we have no idea if it's accomplishing what we think or want it to accomplish. and third, there has been no cost benefit analysis done on this biking and rolling plan. >> so i don't know what world someone is living in that they think they're going to bring this to the board and this board is going to vote on that.

>> you cannot possibly as fiduciaries as stewards of the mta of hundreds of millions of dollars of the public's money. >> you cannot possibly vote on something that does not have a budget metrics and a cost benefit analysis. so i'm glad you have delayed this but i don't think it's something that can be voted on. >> it's sort of this squishy aspirational concept. it is not a plan. it is a concept. >> and i think i'm just going to say the quiet part out loud we all know it's a trojan horse for a whole bunch of stuff that the public doesn't want to get done to just sort of slide under the radar and get done. so i do think you need to slow the roll on this. >> and i do not think it can be voted on anytime in the near future at least until there has

been a very robust public process on the budget metrics and cost benefit. >> thank you so much. thank you. next speaker. >> okay. >> good afternoon. my name is hymie. i live in the tenderloin. i do just want to comment for the past few weeks i always have seen a car crash almost on the chronicle almost every other week. there is a headline about a car crash. there's a headline about somebody getting hit by a car. i remember the person in soma who got rear ended and he passed away along with a dog. this was the second time he was rear ended. and i totally understand that if you're so used to using cars all your life and you know you have to share the road that it feels like it's a big change. and i think it is unfair for a lot of folks that don't have a car to be, you know, ignored

all the time. and i do appreciate the outreach has been done around the bike and rolling plan. i know mta is always criticized for not doing enough outreach. but then we need to do too much outreach and still get criticized. so i do appreciate all the work that's been done on that and also just to the t w workers i know mentioned last week because a shut down the cable car. i would rescind that comment and i'm just seeing kind of like the work that's been done around that and continuing to fund our transit should be a good idea. >> thank you so much for your time. thank you. >> any other speakers for general public comment? go ahead. >> hello. i'd like to talk about the biking rolling plan. and i agree with the fact that i think it needs some more thought on the financials because we are broke and i would like to see more. what's going to happen with that? >> also i'm a car driver or i was a bus driver. >> i was a pedestrian when i

was able to do it. and i think we need more education. i mean pedestrians we were taught when we were young look left, look right, look left. i don't hear that anymore. i see pedestrians going out and thinking cars got to automatically stop for you. it's my life i want to look when i goo pstrcross the street. >> i don't understand what's so hard about that. >> i appreciate all your hard work and i hope we can all come to agreement on this. thank you. >> thank you. any other speakers for general public comment? hi, i'm meredith dodson. >> i'm a mom and a proud public school parent and executive director of s.f. parent coalition. we're a network of thousands of families from every neighborhood across the city advocating for excellent equitable schools as well as for the city infrastructure that supports those schools and those families. mta directors.

thriving cities have thriving families. we don't need any more reasons to make san francisco less family friendly city than it already is at times. we don't need any more reasons to make streets less safe for kids than they already can be. so in just 24 hours we've received over 1600 signatures on our parent petition with kidsafe. parents are asking you please don't cut the school crossing guards program. eliminating this program puts children at risk and i'm sorry that it's on our next and that is june 14th that will be addressed in item 14. it was in the it's it's it's got it it's not that easy to see but it is okay. >> item 14. thank you. that girl sent this to you? yeah. okay. see no other speakers in the room we do have one accommodation request. speaker you've been unmuted. this is for general public comment. >> yeah. this is herbert weiner. now one of my concerns is that

seniors and the disabled have really been neglected by this board and by the city favorite . now certainly serve their place on the throne but then this stable and also the motorists have under presented they should even be sitting on this board. so when you do consider both card and just let's have it wait. you deserve a seat at the table. there's no question about that. now this is the new administration of that it this plan like a new penalty for making changes and really should admit this. >> and right now any expenditures by the cost is a reimbursement. and i just that's so crazy that

mention amtrak commissions new pitching and paying for what incentives and fees and no money should be given because at this time during this crisis thank you thank you. no other speakers. >> we will now close public comment. secretary silva please call the next item. directors that places you on item 13 your 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 item number you are speaking to item 13.1 authorizing the director of transportation to execute the sixth amendment to the s.f. mta contract number 2019-59 where the wsp usa development and delivery of the zero emission facility and fleet transition plan for the purpose of extending the term of the

agreement for an additional six months until august 26th 2025 with no change to the contract amount and delegating to the director the authority to approve additional extensions totaling no more than one additional year to august 26th, 2026 as necessary to complete the zero emission vehicle rollout plan and related activities. that concludes your consent calendar. directors. >> are there any questions or comments regarding the consent calendar? >> no. may i get a a motion in a second to approve it? >> there's a publicly. oh yes. we will now open public comment for the consent calendar. >> thank you. members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes. >> there will be a warning at 30s and a time when the time is up. >> go ahead. thanks again our love and members elita dupree for the record, she and her team voltz. i put my card over here to talk

about this item. give me some positive energy here. >> i've been following the electric bus program for a long time and wsp does a lot of good work. they work in all kinds of different fields and we have to have experts in this work because we are new to battery powered busses and one of the things that i like about our muni is that we have a lot of electric busses but trolley busses don't go everywhere and there are some issues that come with overhead lines. i have been fortunate to have ridden the battery powered busses on several occasions. >> i never know where they are but this contract is very important that i hope we can sustain going forward because the way that we're going to get more electric busses is to go out and buy them. the way that we're going to

overcome challenges with electrifying the charging infrastructure and support for these busses is to go out and to do the work and wsp can help us to get this work done and it's not just about a state mandate for electrifying the system but these are things that we should want to invest in and we will receive great rewards from this work. so this is the smallest concert calendar i have ever seen. one item but i asked that we could get this approved with future extensions because i want to see these battery powered busses on the road. >> thank you. >> thank you. see no further comment in the room. i do have one accommodation request. speaker you've been unmuted.

>> this is for the consent calendar. >> okay. um, no accommodation request. um, that is it for public comment. okay. may i have a motion in a second? >> so move second. secretary sylvia, please call the roll on the motion to approve the consent calendar. >> director chen. hi chennai director hemminger hemminger i director henderson henderson i director lindsey i kinsey i director coquina i because you know i charter tarlov i tarlov i thank you the consent calendar is approved. >> secretary silva please call the next item. >> very good places you want item number 14. >> presentation and discussion regarding a financial update. >> good afternoon board members i'm bri hoarder i'm the cfo of the mta and we are here today

to talk about three things. we're going to take a look at our current fiscal year fiscal year 2425 and check in on how we're doing with achieving our revenue targets and staying within our expenditure budget. >> then we're going to take a look at 2526 and how changes that have happened since you approved the budget last april are impacting our outlook for 2526. and then we're going to briefly take a look at 2627 and see and check in on how we're doing with serving solving the larger $322 million budget deficit. >> so you may recall in october when four months of the fiscal year had elapsed we were showing a very slight surplus relative to budget for the end of the year. since that time our position has actually worsened slightly and we're now showing a very small $4 million deficit at the end of the fiscal year.

i do want to note that $4 million is a very, very small amount when we are looking at a budget of $1.5 billion. >> but it's important to be looking at the overall trends and watching where revenue and expenditure are going. >> and i do want to note that many that a lot of this data is based on a linear projection and therefore i think that the $4 million implies a level of precision that is that underneath there are lots of assumptions about all of the things that are going to happen between now and the end of the year. and we're going to talk a little bit about what some of the uncertainty is surrounding these numbers. so relative to october, we're now looking at a $4 million deficit for the year but beginning in october we did freeze all hiring for except for nonessential positions like

operators and parking control officers and transit inspectors. >> and so we are enticing stating that as the year moves on the impact of that hiring freeze will start to see that in our labor actuals and that we will correct by the end of the year. >> but i did want to show the negative place because it's important to understand why we're making the corrections that we're making and we're making the corrections that we're making in direct response to what we're seeing in agency revenue recovery and expenditure. >> so our revenue picture is -$13 million on the year meaning we're expected to recover $13 million less than we had projected in our original budget and again $13 million is very, very small when compared to the larger the larger mta budget.

>> however, just like your family budget i am only allowed to spend the money that that comes in the door and so $13 million although the number is small it is a real $13 million and it is a number that we do have to balance around the weakness in our revenue recovery is primarily driven by operating grants and parking and we'll go into that in a little bit more detail later in the presentation. >> so on the transit revenue side we talked a lot in the budget cycle about what we could do to increase our own revenue sources. and one of the things and in fact the only additional expenditure we made in the budget was for 36 new transit fare inspectors. and as you can see from the data here hiring those transit fare inspectors has been very, very impactful in increasing the number of transit fare inspections that we are doing on a monthly basis. and in fact in february we are

on track to have the highest number of inspections since last year since 2024. so i think this has been a very impactful program and i think it's done a lot to increase the perception that paying for your fare is a critical piece a critical critical part of writing transit. and i do want to remind people that the purpose of the transit fare inspectors is to encourage payment. the purpose is not to be punitive and the transit fare inspectors do connect those who are underresourced to pay their fair with one of our many programs that support people with low incomes. >> on the parking revenue side you can see that the the the parking revenues are not moving significantly between october and december. things are remaining pretty close to a flat trend which is different than some of our prior years and is kind of telling me that we're moving into a place where the we're

moving into a bit of a steady state where we're having to adjust to the new reality of the amount of parking revenue that we can expect to generate. >> absent additional action by the agency. the one place where i am seeing a slight difference is in garage retail in some of our garages we have retail spaces that we rent out and that rent is tied to the productivity of that space. >> so for example you might park at one of the mta garages. valentine's day was on friday. maybe there's a florist in the garage and you grab a bouquet of flowers on your way home for that special someone that turns into revenue for the business which then turns into rent for the agency. >> and we have seen some recovery in that area as you can see on the far right of this graph. in october we were projecting to generate only $1 million for the year and we're now projecting to generate $4

million. so this is this is a small bright spot but a bright spot nonetheless. >> but i think the overall trend remains the same. this chart shows you the actuals from the 1819 pre-pandemic period versus our current actuals. and you can see that we are really generating a lot less garage revenue than we did pre-pandemic and that is primarily happening in sutter stockton fifth and mission and ellis and o'farrell. these are our three downtown garages so this is really tied to the larger story of the downtown economic recovery when people are not working downtown and when after work they're not doing other activities in the neighborhood or people are not coming driving in to shop. >> that means that there's less parking revenue generated and you can really see that here in this table. >> so on the expenditure side we are actually projected to

expend $9 million less than our budget. >> so i think what this tells us this is really a revenue problem, not an expenditure problem. >> we are doing a very good job of projecting how much the amount that we are spending is very close to what we anticipated spending when we built the budget. but what is happening is that what we projected to recover is coming in $13 million less and that that has been mostly made up by spending a little bit less than we had anticipated. so by putting in expenditure controls like freezing hiring we've been able to offset the impact of that lower revenue generated but not fully because the full impact of not spending hasn't yet been felt because it's february and then the hiring free started in october. >> but i will note that from a

financial perspective expenditure expenditure control is a good thing because it means that we stay within our budget. >> but from an operating perspective that is a really painful thing because it means that we don't have all of the resources we need to provide the service that we know that the public everyone here who's come to provide comment today is supportive of and so desperately needs. >> so it's a it's a little bit of a you know it's a little bit of a double edged sword. >> so in terms of expenditure control we've been able to keep our expenditure to within $9 million of our expenditure budget by taking some pretty significant steps to actively manage our expenditure. first in the 2425 budget we defunded 295 fte. that's 160 more fte than defunded fte that were in the 2324 budget. >> so we've been really holding

back on the amount of resources that we're allowing ourselves, the amount of staff that we're allowing ourselves to fill since we started slowing down hiring in july and then moved to a freeze of all non-essential positions in october. we've also started a quarterly planning process where we're looking at all of our non-labor expenditure on a quarterly basis and projecting that to the end of the year evaluating those expenditures versus budget and work program to make sure that the expenditure is consistent with the service that we need to provide. and then we are also reviewing our work orders which is a which is the kind of fancy budget word for services provided to us by other departments. >> i do want to note that we are in a period of pretty profound uncertainty. for those of you who keep up with the general fund, the city released its general fund projections in december and is

about to release the six month report and the high level picture that the city is projecting is significant uncertainty and that revenue reductions in the general fund are likely in response to this in the in january the city similar to the what the mta did in october and did a citywide hiring freeze for all nonessential positions and the mayor has directed departments that are not safety critical to reduce their expenditures by 15%. >> so what this tells me is that what the mta is experiencing is kind of a small piece of the larger picture that the city is experiencing. there's a lack of revenue, lack of revenue is forcing mta and other city agencies to constrain expenditure and we are all expected to to reduce our budgets and that's just kind of the painful reality that every single city department across the entire

city is facing to in a good way. we're not alone but in a bad way we're not alone because our boat is in the same sea that every other city department is in and we're all floating at the same level and so it becomes challenging to look to the city for additional support when the city is already asking departments to cut 15% and has already put in a city hiring freeze. >> and also i think we are all well aware that things at the state and the federal level are in significant flux and those funds could continue to fluctuate as the political situation evolves. >> in response to this my team is continually forecasting and planning and continuing to monitor and implement internal controls to manage around that risk. >> so in some for 2425 i think

the big picture takeaway is that revenue is slightly lower very slightly lower than budgeted and that's mostly been driven by parking and operating grants. on the expenditure side were largely consistent with budget slightly under expended due to active spending control and that under expenditure when compared with the with the lower than expected revenue coverage is keeping us basically right on budget. but we are really balancing on the head of a pin and given the amount of uncertainty that's in the air and the the very small amount by which we are balanced. >> i think it's we really have to be mindful about how uncertainty is and how much how many unexpected things could happen between now and the end of the year. >> on the subject of unexpected things, a number of unexpected things happened after you all

passed the budget. >> well, actually i would say a number of unexpected things have happened since you all passed the 20 one, 22 and 2223 budgets. >> every year the city announces its general fund expectations twice a year and december and march and then there's a true up at the end of the year and each december and march we have seen a slow ratcheting down of the general fund baseline expectations for the mta and that is resulted in the loss of $10 million worth of resources going back to to the 2122 and 2223 budgets and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail. >> but that is sort of along his historical pattern that started during covid and continues to this day and in fact in the most recent general fund updates that were

released in december, our baselines were reduced for the current year another $10 million. so we're seeing sort of a slow ratcheting down of general fund support based on expectations of general fund revenue. >> and then also you'll recall when i gave my four month update in october we talked about the fiscal year 2324 close and how due to some unexpected costs the 2324 year was more expensive to close the we to anticipate did and i had to use some federal relief that i had planned to use in 2526 to close 2324. >> so we'll talk about all these three concepts in a little bit more detail. >> so as i mentioned is over time the general fund has slowly reduced its expectations and as a result the mta has held positions vacant when revenue doesn't come in we have to hold positions vacant because we know we don't have the funds to pay those salaries . >> and because we wanted to

maintain service levels we continue to hire operators at the rate required to provide service but because resources were limited we held vacant non operator positions and kind of like that door handle in your house that you can ignore for a couple of months it's kind of wiggly it's falling off but you're like a not today's problem. i will fix that tomorrow you can tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow that for a certain amount of time but eventually the door handle will fall off. >> and we believe that we are now at the point where because we've held these non operator positions vacant essentially since 20 to 23, we are now getting to the point where we're starting to see mechanical problems that are starting to impact the quality of service and we can given our resource constraints we really need to be mindful of the balance about the balance of of

operators that we hire relative to mechanics that we hire so that we continue to provide the highest quality service that we know the public demands and that because we've providing that quality spend, providing that quality service we are getting such high customer service ratings and we are really, really committed to maintaining that high customer service rating particularly because of where we need to be at the ballot in november 2026. >> so over time general fund has reduced in response we've held non operator positions vacant which is had we've managed to hold off the larger systemic impacts of that but we're starting to feel those now in the short term as i mentioned in december both muni baseline and the parking baseline came down $10 million. the muni and the parking baseline are a percentage of the aggregate general fund discretionary revenue. so that's an estimate of all of the revenue that's estimated to

come into the general fund and we get a legislatively dictated percentage of that money. so when the amount of money the general fund expects to collect is lower, our percentage of a lower number is lower and that's what's reflected here. so what that means is in 2526 i have i've already absorbed $10 million of a you know, held vacant $10 million worth of positions that we did not want to hold vacant because we lost. we've been slowly our revenues slowly been squeezed over the last couple of years and now there's an additional $10 million that i know i cannot expect to receive in 2526. >> so we are down now $20 million off of 2526. >> and then now let's talk about what happened in 2324. so when we talked in october i noted that there were $32 million in non-labor expenditure that was higher than where i was where i

projected to end at the nine month. so at the nine month i thought that we would end with a very small basically balanced on the head of a pin and i got a number of pieces of bad news at the end of the year there were some legal settlements and insurance costs and equipment maintenance costs that came in higher than expected in the last three months of the year. and then also work orders which again are the services provided by city departments for legal and auto repair and power power being essentially the power provided by puc. those all came in higher than expected. >> so i had $50 million more expenditure than i had projected at the nine month during 2324 and the not and wear and the nine month was what i used to build a 2520 six budget. >> so at the nine month i anticipate that i would have a certain i would have $40 million available to spend in 2526 of federal relief but i

had to use $30 million of that to unexpectedly close 2324. but by that time you all had already passed the budget. so i sort of knew that 2526 was going to be tough unless i was able to generate more revenue than anticipated this year or spend less than anticipated this year build up the fund balance as you see from the first part of the presentation and the fund balance is not being built up and in fact we are expected to just barely balance. and so i now know that there's $30 million worth of federal and relief that i had anticipated getting in spending in 2526 that has already been spent. so in some 2520 six is has a $50 million need and that need is because revenue did not come in as expected. and so we need to reduce our expenditure commensurately and i think it's important to note that the choices we make about that $50 million are going to impact the $322

million deficit in 2627. >> so let's talk about some of those choices. so to close the 50 million dollars gap we've identified four areas where we can either shift resources from capital to operating or move operating resources to capital to reduce the pressure on the operating budget and increase parking and then decrease professional service expenditures when we do all of those things we've identified about $35 million in in solutions for the $50 million problem. and while these solutions are i would say these solutions are less painful because it is not pain free to shift capital resources to operating we will be doing less of the things that keeps muni reliable in the

long term. and when we shift operating resources from the paint and streets shops that means that instead of maintaining our existing paint and our existing signs we're going to be painting new paint and painting and installing new signs and while new paint, new signs are a good thing, there is a tradeoff in that the existing infrastructure will be maintained less but certainly these are less difficult choices than the other choices we need to make to close the remaining $15 million. so let's talk about what those those choices are. >> so we have three options. the first option is the summer service cuts that you were presented with at your last meeting. >> option two is a number of agency wide program and project cuts which we'll discuss in greater detail and then option three which was requested by director hemminger was to spend

the agency reserves. >> so as i mentioned the summer service cuts that shaun presented last at the last meeting you're well aware of what those options are. >> that's option one. >> option two is a series of agency wide program and project cuts kind of spanning throughout all the various service levels of the agency. >> so the first item would be to cancel a vintage historic rebuild and then delay a phase two mid-life bus overhaul that would allow us to flex capital funds from capital to preventative maintenance. we would also reduce our maintenance at the bart at the shared bart and muni station. so those are the stations running from embarcadero to civic center. >> we would also cancel a safety equity initiative bus stop lighting program and we would be reducing the total subsidies that we provide for a variety of types of tows rather

than subsidizing those tows. those types of tows would be expected to pay more of the real cost of the tow. and then we've also proposed eliminating school the school crossing guard program or finding an alternative funding source. >> and i do want to be clear that none of these choices are easy and none of these choices are none of these choices are desired by staff just as cutting transit service is hard and not desired by staff. but the reality is we don't have a sufficient number of resources to provide the service that we have promised the public to provide in 26. and so we must reduce our costs somewhere. >> and so option three as requested by director hemminger would be to spend $15 million of reserve funds. so as a reminder, the board passed a policy that 10% of our budget should be on reserve in each budget cycle.

our current reserve is 141 million. we would be reducing our reserve to 126 million. >> and i would say that reducing our reserve in a time of such financial instability that we've already discussed increases the risks surrounding 2627. >> from a financial perspective we should be using the reserve for one of three things. >> one would be an unforeseen emergency something like the covid pandemic or perhaps given what we're seeing at the federal level the federal government decides not to reimburse an expense that we've already incurred because it no longer fits with federal government priorities. >> and two, it could be a bridge to somewhere meaning if we had a very clear plan for 2627 and we knew that we could sustain the current service levels and had a plan to do so and we just needed a bridge to

get there so that we wouldn't drop service levels just to bring them back up again when new funds start flowing. that would be a reasonable use of the reserve. but in this moment we don't have that clear plan or the the reserve could be used as a runway in the unthinkable circumstance that the regional revenue measure fails to pass. we are going to have a level of expenditure in the agency that we do not have funding to fund and we will need time to ramp that down in the way that is least painful to staff and the public. and that will take time and we'll need to plug plug the hole in between and prevent you know, the need to pull the emergency brake really hard to make sure that we have enough funds to get through the year. so that being said, it is a policy matter for the board to decide if they would like to use the reserve.

>> so i want to address one more potential option. you know, as director kirschbaum mentioned at the beginning during the executive directors report we have heard a lot of concern in the community about affordability and for that. and at the meeting funding working group we've heard a lot of concerns about programs that dramatically increase the cost of parking. and so for that reason we are not presenting an option that would include evening and sunday meters. it is an option that we have discussed many times but based on what we're hearing in the community about affordability, it's not an option that we're presented to you at this time. so i want to take a step back and look at the three options and kind of compare them on two criteria.

>> so one criteria would be what is the impact of the way we solve the 2526 problem on the 2627 problem any cut that is an ongoing cut helps close the gap for 2627. >> any solution within that is a one time solution is has no impact on the 2627 deficit or possibly makes it worse by using resources today that might need to be used in 2627. so summer service cuts are an ongoing service cut so we would anticipate that there would be an impact to the $322 million deficit in 2627. >> the option to agency wide program and project cuts are a combination of ongoing and one time uses. so we would expect that it would have a mixed impact on 2627 and then spending agency

reserves is a one time solution. so we anticipate that it would do nothing to solve the 2627 problem absent perhaps making us more attractive at the ballot in november 26. in terms of the stakeholders impacted option one summer service cuts clearly impacts transit riders option to agency wide program and project cuts would impact schoolchildren people whose cars has been too car has been towed and also transit riders. because of those two options that flex capital to up to operating and then the impact of spending the agency reserve it impacts a variety of stakeholders because it takes away resources from 2627 which is a significant way out into the future and we don't you know, it's difficult to directly identify those stakeholders but it certainly reduces our ability to absorb

future financial risk. >> so 2526 in review and due to declining resources we have $50 million less in resources to provide the services that we promised to provide in 2526. we've identified solutions with smaller tradeoffs for 35 million but we need board guidance with regard to which option you would like to use to close the remaining $15 million. there are three options in front of you to consider to close the remaining $50 million. one is the sum the summer service cuts presented last week. one is the variety of agency wide programs and projects presented to you today. and then your third option is to use the agency reserves. >> so 2627 as a reminder we all have our eye very sharply on 2627 when we anticipate that there will be a $322 million

budget deficit that grows over time with coal and inflation. that $322 million is the impact of federal and state relief no longer being available to backstop up the revenue that the agency is no longer producing either through parking revenue or through transfers from the general fund . >> so what is our plan to close the 2627 deficit? and as director kirschbaum mentioned at the top we continue to work very closely with the comptroller and all of our stakeholders in the muni funding working group. we've discussed options for efficiency improvements, service cuts, revenue enhancements and service enhancements. and we'll be presenting these options in a series of packages for the muni funding working group's feedback in march. and we also anticipate that the comptroller will be issuing their report in march on in terms of the regional revenue measure authorizing legislation for the measure was introduced

in january. and as director kirschbaum mentioned, polling has been conducted and we've gotten feedback at the citizens positive feedback at the citizens initiative level. but there is not sufficient support in the absence to meet the two thirds mark. and we continue to work with our partners who are both elected officials and regional transit planning agencies and other regional transit agencies to build consensus towards what that regional revenue measure might look like. >> so for you all your next steps are here today february 18th. this is your first discussion on these three short term funding options. we'll be back on march 4th for the transit team to provide a review of the community feedback on the proposed service cuts. >> and we would like you to make a decision at that time on the packages that you would like the options you would like

to use to close the 50 million budget deficit and the reason for that timeline is because we need we need to cutting service and implementing all these changes takes time and these need to be in place by july 1st. so we need a significant runway to take the action of the board as directed on march 18th. director wise will be back to discuss more about the parking optimization choices that are built into the $35 million of less difficult choices that we have that we're proposing to close the deficit. and then the board will make its final decision on service cuts if that is an option that you decide to move forward, you will decide to move forward with and then again if service cuts are one of the options that you decide to include in the package to close the $50 million deficit. staff will be back for title six approval of service cuts on

april 1st so that we're able to move forward with the implementation timeline. >> but by july 1st so that is the end of my presentation and i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you so very much. cfo marauder for your presentation colleagues i, i would like to allow for us to take a brief break following public comment for this item i want to acknowledge the members of the public who have come and waited so patiently to speak on this item. but in the meantime if you have any brief clarifying questions for our cfo marauder this is your opportunity to do that. >> i just have one which is all of these options that are being presented to us in particular the service cuts scenario one,

two and three is how they've been presented are these it's not an all or nothing choice on the part of this board is that certainly we packaged the options for intellectual clarity into distinct options that you could choose. however you could certainly use the items in option two to buyback service cuts rather than doing $1,315 million of service cuts you could do $13 million and choose one of the more palatable options from option two or you could have option to be your primary base and buyback one of those sub options by putting in transit cuts. so there's really and similarly you could choose to use you could choose to use a smaller amount of the reserve so you can look at all of the options

proposed as a menu to choose from to meet your policy objectives. >> thank you very much. i would like to open this item on item 14 for public comment. >> members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. there will be a warning sound when there is a there are 30s left and a time when the time is up for any members of the public seeking language translation this afternoon we will be using the language line service if you are requesting translation please make your way to the door area and our staff person there will help set that up. >> members of the public are reminded that the board does not tolerate any disruptions or outbursts of any kind during its proceedings. >> this includes clapping booing if you want to show support or opposition you may do so silently. this could be a thumbs up or down or a wave of the hands. we thank you for your cooperation. i will read some of the speaker cards i have paul lui, alison meyer, wilson wang either mike

hire mta board members and welcome director julie hirsch baum. my name is paul. i am a seiu 1021 member and a school crossing guard at a public school. >> i will be covering four points. one i oppose the mta shutting down the school crossing guard program. two the crossing guard program is invaluable because we keep schoolchildren and their families safe. for example, across an eight year old third grader recently he realized that he forgot the water bottle his water bottle and ran back to his parent's car as she was driving off. >> instead of staying behind myself and my stop sign he tried to run ahead of myself and my stop sign. >> i yelled to him to look out for an oncoming car coming

toward him. >> he didn't hear me so i had to grab his arm and prevent him from getting hit by the car. >> this type of situation happens all the time for the cost savings are minuscule. >> cutting 200 crossing guards saves only 2.9 million less than 2.2 percent of some cisco mta 1.5 billion revenue. >> this is an insignificant amount that won't meaningfully address budget shortfalls. surely there are better opportunities to cut costs without compromising public safety. >> thanks and have a great day. proud member i'm paul proud member of south cisco mta part member seiu 1021 and a proud school crossing guard. >> thank you everyone. thank you. next speaker. hi, my name is sarah wilson. >> i am on staff at seiu local

10 to 1 and our members the crossing guards that are here are going to tell you more that better than i can or anyone else how important their work is but also i'm the parent of a fifth grader at dolores huerta elementary. and as you probably know, that school is located at the intersection of randle and san jose avenue. and every single day i see the importance of our crossing guards. so it's pretty alarming to see that this piece of the proposal or that that that cutting the entire program potentially was part of this proposal. >> so i just want to make it clear that, you know, these these savings are going to be ultimately wiped out if if there's one, you know, terrible tragic accident and and we see someone get hurt and if someone

sues the city, you know, $2.9 million is relatively not that much. when you when you're talking in terms of a lawsuit. >> so that's all i had to say. thank you. thank you. next speaker i'll read more speaker guy's name's dennis wang joel and mr.. >> hi, i'm allison meyer. i am a parent of two kids at rooftop elementary second and fourth grade and i also live across the street from rooftop so i live on the 37 bus line and used it to get here. so i don't want service cuts either but i also really value the the crossing guards who help my kids get to school because my kids walk to school by themselves. but the rule in our family is they have to come back if the crossing guard isn't there because it it i do not feel comfortable having them cross the street without a crossing guard because it's even though that's not a busy street it's not a very easy one to cross.

i cross really cautiously because cars come whipping around what they think is a pretty empty street with a lot of curves so the crossing guards do a lot every day to keep my kids and so many other kids who just got out of school and are here today and safe. and so while i know you have so many hard choices to make, i, i really want to keep taking the 37 pretty regularly but it's so important to me that we don't put our kids safety as one of the things on this this budget thing for consideration because you know none of us wants to have one of our really vulnerable populations or be a thing on the on the budget line item. >> so thank you for all the ways that you're considering this so thoughtfully. i know it's hard but but i really want to show our support for how valuable the crossing guards are for our kids safety. >> thank you. next speaker i am joel kammerer

a crossing guard at 19th and judah and i also represent the guards as their union representative. i understand that you're in a difficult spot. you have to close the deficit and all options must be considered but eliminating the crossings guards is not a good idea because we're a vital part of the vision zero program and we prevent a lot of accidents. >> you don't hear about this every day not the kids but often adults that are on there texting or on their phone or they're rushing to catch a muni and they don't see it and we kind of yell at them like watch out. there's a car coming and we've prevented an accident that might have sent someone to the hospital and couldn't afford to pay their bill at zuckerberg general hospital or some of the drivers don't have enough insurance and all those lawyers you see on tv that want to get a big settlement or try to find a way to blame the mta and it's happened in the past and the mta has to pay a huge settlement and about 2% of our salary actually goes to the

fund that keeps the retirement system solvent and we're not even eligible to participate in it. >> and when we spend part of our salary at the local merchants, some of it goes back to the city as sales tax. so you know our salary goes elsewhere and it helps keep the shops open. >> workers employed. it prevents neighborhood blight. we're also a neighborhood watch which is a valuable service in our mta badge says we're required to report unusual behavior unknown substances, suspicious packages and others to the transportation management commission. >> jeffrey toolan once referred to us as our beloved crossing guard. and julie, i hope we're still beloved especially me when sometimes i'll have to bring up some union viewpoint that will annoy you now. >> but i wonder i wonder like why are we're part time amongst the lowest paid employees and the only department targeted for complete elimination? >> that's not acceptable. we should all work together with the mayor and the supervisors to try to find

those funds and not just slashing the budget. >> slashing 300 guards is not acceptable. that's something elon musk would do and i know none of you are elon musk so thank you. >> thank you. i'll read a few more speaker cards. omar fall christopher peterson alita fisher. >> hello mta board and congrats julie. my name is dennis wong. i'm a union rep with seiu 1021 i represent the mta that includes the 8201 crossing guards who currently have 160 crossing guards who make about $25 an hour. they don't get health care benefits. they work split shifts. they only get 450 hours each year. they're often understaffed without a guard for each school that wants one. >> it's an important role that is often difficult to fill in private meetings such as the mini funding working group. no one has ever brought up eliminating the crossing school program as an alternative until last thursday february 13th. happy valentine's day. right. this was unacceptable

and startling to hear. i understand that the mta is facing a huge budget deficit of 50 million this year. what do we need to still cut 15 million from the last mta board meeting? it was stated that the board wanted to see other alternatives to service cuts as an option. they considered using the 15 million from the 140 million reserves we just heard from three mta proposing cutting the school crossing guard program to save 2.9 million words and decrease public safety overall would increase risk to everyone crossing guards keep children and their families and other pedestrians safe at intersections and schools throughout temporary cisco. as a san francisco native who attended public schools and still resides in the city, i know the crossing guards are a fixture and a valuable part of our communities. with traffic deaths on the rise, the mta eliminating crossing guard program will create an unacceptable tradeoff that may lead to increased pedestrian fatalities that will

be detrimental to divisions zero plan to eliminate traffic fatalities and will also increase liability for the city as many has already mentioned, our crossing guard members will be negatively affected if this program is cut. many of our crossing guards live in san francisco and they rely on these wages to supplement their fixed income. >> so these layoffs would be a personal hardship for many. some may even face being this place. in conclusion, the union urges you and supports the board finding other alternative funding streams and other solutions such as spending down the reserves and not cutting vital services and include the crossing guard program. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. good afternoon. my name is wilson and i've been a crossing guard for seven years. as a crossing guard i've seen firsthand how critical our role is to keep my children safe. i think cutting this program would be a serious mistake. first our presence prevents accidents and protects children from reckless drivers.

i'm confident that i've personally prevented several incidents myself and as my colleague mentioned, he gave an example where he did the same and with nearly 200 crossing guards citywide. this impact is significant preventing even one serious injuries worse way more than $2.9 million in savings by cutting this program. second, we manage chaos and keep traffic flowing when kids pour out of school. it can be chaotic. a lot of these kids are running to try to catch the bus and they just run out in the street. so we try to hold them back and we try to let the cars cross. >> and so everything is not chaotic without crossing guards to direct traffic. >> the risk of accidents really skyrockets. and as my colleague mentioned, it seems like the savings is negligible. cutting 2.9 million out of a $1.5 billion dollar revenue for a second tier is equivalent to about a point 2% savings.

finally we encourage safe habits and active transportation in our prisons gives parents peace of mind. so this encourages children to walk, bike or take public transit all while aligning with vision their goals of improving safety and really reducing car reliance. so i urge you to prioritize safety over a small amount of money that we can save. thank you very much. thank you. >> next speaker hello. i'm lisa platt, a d2 resident and i have two cats. >> the dog people are going to have to stick with me for just a second. when i get the tree container out, road comes running. >> she paused. she meows. she throws her whole self into it so i start giving her treats. >> storm because rogue edges her out of the way patiently waits. >> so by the time she's ready

roke has already had 2 or 3 treats. so i start giving storm treats while out while alternating in a few for rogue. >> and she starts to absolutely lose her mind because she thinks her sister has taken all of her treats all of her food. >> but in reality rogue just got hers first. >> they got the same amount but it feels like she's being cheated. my point is there's a perception that when we fund transit in this city or when we charge cars for their share of the actual cost of providing and maintaining the 1300 miles of road that they get to drive and park on in much of the city for free in our residential areas that there's a war on cars. >> but in reality cars just already got their treats. so you said extending parking meters was off the table because people expressed concern probably with the same fervor as a food motivated rogue. but people like me are showing

up every week begging you not to cut transit. >> i have walked a lot of distance to inform people about the cuts. so what i'm asking you for today is to be good cat moms. remember that you already got your treats. >> let people now. your time is not gone. >> it's not. you're still here getting your piece of the pie. but the reality is is that we need you to find funding through a general fund transfer. we need to look at parking fees on the budget problem that parking fees created do not cut money service, please. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. hi, my name is michael sherman. i raised two children in san francisco. they went to as of usd from kindergarten through 12th grade. crossing guards are essential

services. >> this needs to actually be expanded not cut. for example, roosevelt middle school did not have a crossing guard when we were there. >> boy does it need one. i still have ptsd from that and my children are in their 20s as have mta has wasted so much money on misguided and aspirational programs while failing to address practical and critical issues. yet you propose to eliminate spending on child safety. balancing the budget on the backs of the city's children. it's not the answer. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is christopher peterson and i'd like to congratulate director kirschbaum on her hiring. >> i am dismayed that the presentation rules out the mere possibility of expanding parking meter hours. i urge this board to consider all possible measures to avoid

service cuts this year. expanding parking meter hours would generate enough revenue to avoid service cuts this year without touching us staff mta's reserves and other important services such as school crossing guards. i understand that charging for parking is politically controversial but i urge the board to fight hard to protect muni from cuts. if the mayor or the board of supervisors losers value free parking more highly than muni let them be the ones who make that decision. the s.f. mta should not preemptively give up on the transit first mandates of the city's charter. thank you. thank you. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon board of directors. my name is omar following the san francisco aclu director. >> i will probably be repetitive in my comments because what i am about to say

has been said already. >> first of all, cutting of programs such as the crossing guards contrary to san francisco vision zero plan that was created in 2014. >> the greater thing is the children's safety that's going to endanger our dear life after school. parents will not be at ease knowing that their children are not protected and it made home safely. there's also another thing a displacement of retired workers. basically most of them volunteer for this task for two hours and so forth. san francisco has already spent if they could create greater displacement earlier the new director julie crisp said that she was willing to finding resources in solution being responsive to customers need parents and customers. these kids that you heard a

minute ago can be considered as your customers. these parents are also your customers. this bendy solution to remove 2.9 and affect people's livelihood is a no no. i call it a band-aid solution. it is not finding resources or the solution. one parent said to me the more terrifying thing is to find a kid going into an animal and you said your kids also cross out, go to school either sometimes you pick them up, sometimes you don't. can you imagine if something happened? so we don't want to think about that. we need to find a better solution instead of balancing your budget on the back of the lowest paid people. this is not something we do. you talked about using your

resources for unforeseen situations. what's happening with this administration is could be defined as such. use your reserve please. next speaker i have a couple more speaker cards. jodi medeiros sienna high directors dylan. >> s.f. transit riders and muni now muni forever. >> thus far the board did not approve any plan that leads to premature muni service cuts or cuts to other non muni services like the crossing guards program. she named prayers or as many nominee services as possible. so that means we can't support either option one or option two so therefore we support option three. although nobody likes needing to tap into their emergency funds, we are entering an emergency and i want to be clear that service cuts and cuts are crossing our program. >> that's not the solution. that's the problem and we should be coming together to

solve that problem rather than just accepting it. i get the concern about tapping into reserves without guaranteed funding lined up but failing to prevent these cuts will make it even harder to get those sustainable funding sources you're looking for. the city right now is looking at this board to see how it reacts to this issue and failing to solve the problem of service cuts here puts the blame squarely on this body rather than on the city as a whole. so we need to be working together to prevent these cuts and doing nothing here allows the rest of city hall to point the blame towards this board instead of taking action themselves. >> we should be using the reserves when they make a difference. now they can prevent the cuts later. it's only a drop in the bucket and so we should be using this tactics the reserves to to buy us some time. alert the public of the cuts that are coming in 2026 do more outreach and hopefully find a

larger more sustainable funding source later on. i also just want to say that, you know, it's ridiculous to pit transit riders against children's safety when other options are still on the table like the reserves and like the parking meter extensions which have already been approved by this board years ago. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi. good afternoon. my name is elizabeth travel. i am a lifelong san francisco resident and mother of an suffused sixth grader. i have been a muni rider and city pedestrian for over 40 years. it's been brought to my attention that as a mta school crossing guard program may be targeted for elimination. and i'm here to remind you that crossing guards provide an essential public safety service comparable to the police, fire department and hospital. its funding must be maintained as such. >> last year 24 pedestrians were killed by drivers the highest number in a decade.

i invite you to the corner of turk and pierce at 8:30 a.m. on any school day to observe sean the crossing guard at my child's school. the intersection becomes a dense, fast moving entanglement of children pedestrians, bicycles and motor traffic from every direction all at once. the skill sean brings to his work is extraordinary. a considerable personal risk. armed only with a stop sign crossing guards like sean protect and serve thousands of our city's children every day rain or shine. it's not an exaggeration to say crossing guards are heroes and they save lives. >> sorry. like many working families, mike understands the need to watch our spending and budget within our means. but let's be real. i don't see s.f. mta in the news for a $108 million of overtime abuse. >> that's the s.f. pd as santa is not to blame for empty

office buildings and languishing commercial properties. that's investment bankers and slumlords refusing the free market and to pay their fair share of taxes. if departments are confronting deficits, let's start with the policies and practices that allow a handful of greedy actors to bleed our city resources dry world class cities provide world class public services. i firmly believe that the services of the s.f. mta are how our city's children become our city's citizens. you abandon them and the crossing guards who protect them at our peril. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> hello board of directors christopher white executive director of the san francisco bicycle coalition. and first of all, congratulations to director kirschbaum. >> we are proud members of the muni now muni forever campaign because transit friendly cities are bike friendly cities. on slide 22 of their presentation staff clearly indicated that another option exists for helping address the

$15 million shortfall in their budget projections. actually asking people who drive to pay their fair share for the privilege of storing their personal property on the public right of way. but this option is not even being offered to the board to consider. instead, everyone in the city is being made to subsidize private use of curb space. we've understood for decades that bad parking policy leads to negative impacts on neighborhoods and induces greater car dependency both of which are impacts the s.f. mta should be trying to avoid. >> it's especially shocking that the options being presented are further cuts to muni service or putting children in danger by cutting the school crossing guard program. >> these are the options offered despite the board directing staff to extend parking meter hours all the way back in 2020. the decision to not keep parking reforms on the table as a funding source contradicts the agency's own goals. prioritizing free parking while putting children in danger in order to appease a small but vocal opposition is morally

indefensible. muni service cuts will impact everyone in san francisco no matter how they get around the city. for people who need to drive service cuts will lead to more congestion and longer travel times more vehicles on our streets mean putting our most vulnerable road users at risk. that includes seniors, people with disabilities and children moving forward with option one and two will disproportionately harm transit riders in our most vulnerable road users. i'm here today to ask the board not to support any plan that leads to muni service cuts, cutting equity programs or the school crossing guard program. extending parking meter hours can help the agency's financial crisis and we are asking you to have a more public conversation about it. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> hello, my name is joan boyle. >> i'm a grandmother. my grandson lives with me and we walk to sunnyside school every day and home and we rely strongly on our crossing guard

ben reed who's at monterey and forester, which is a very busy intersection with a light and people turning right and left and trying to go to work and acting terrible. >> and then further down the street at the school there's a four way stop big backup and we've got tina there to keep us safe and make sure that the parents can come drop off their kids. and the people trying to go to work don't cut around everyone and don't sit and honk and to make the children see the correct way to cross the street and to have them see the children have someone to rely on that they know they can go to if they are afraid or if they need to cross the street. so i beg you to keep ben and tina and the other crossing guards to keep our children safe because their jobs are really, really, really

important. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker. >> hello everyone. >> my name is elita fisher. i am a commissioner on the san francisco unified school board. so first thank you cfo marauder for your report. >> i have to say i completely empathize with the difficult budget situation you're in. we're feeling it across the street. federal funds and grants are disappearing. enrollment and attendance or in your case ridership and parking revenues are decreasing. deferred maintenance coming due after years of revenue squeezes there are no easy balancing budget balancing measures left. >> everything is painful. >> so now more than ever our budgets have to be value statements. the safety of san franciscans needs to be front and center in budget planning. and for many of us here today that means continuing to provide funding for our crossing guards. >> if we believe in vision zero, we need to prioritize crossing guards and the

important role they play in keeping students family and our entire community safe. i wish i could stand in front of you here today and say don't worry the school district is going to be your financial savior in all of this but unfortunately i can't. >> as you likely know, the california department of education has stay and rescind authority over us if you will stay. right now our fiscal advisors are forcing us to slash social workers nurses, wellness staff and assistant principals as a means of balancing our 2526 budget. with this economic reality facing our more than 48,000 students and their families, i beg you to please help us by continuing to fund our crossing guards and i can offer as a partner to continue to collaborate with you and be a partner in looking for these funds. this is really as you've heard from everyone huge priority to all of us and we as a school district are a star a stronger and safer place for everyone including our students because

of support and partnerships with folks like you and i really look forward to the opportunities to collaborate to make sure that mutually we provide a prosperous community . >> thank you. commissioner fisher i just would like to thank you very, very much for for coming today and and speaking about the collaboration that is already underway and that the shared goal of safety on the on the streets for the children through the school crossing guard program director kirschbaum and many others. >> safe safe routes to school you all are amazing in the support you provide so thank you. oh thank you very much for acknowledging that. director kirschbaum i. i know this is a little unusual but i'd like to just open the opportunity for a little insight to the dialog that's ongoing between mta and s.f.

usd. if you wouldn't mind and if you could both you know just accommodate me on that. >> yes, thank you for being here and thank you to everybody who came here particularly our crossing guards after a hard day's work we put this item in package to not because we think that the parking that the crossing guard program is expendable but because we are facing a series of very difficult choices and wanted to have this policy discussion. this is a program that is intended to have half $1 million of annual reimbursements from the school

district last year they were able to contribute 75,000. >> but we have not scaled the program in in any way in in response to that. we have also continued over my tenure at the agency to ratchet up our muni service around school periods in large part to absorb the elimination of most of the yellow school busses that happened in 2007 and 2008. so we have two agencies that are extreme. we fiscally constrained. i think the school districts experience is why you're going to hear barry and i advocate for ongoing solutions that reduce expenditures and we look

forward not to just hitting the already poor school district with with a bigger bill but working together to identify alternative funding sources for this important program. >> thank you both very much. >> i feel that was very important to hear. thank you. next speaker good evening directors. it is almost evening now cyrus hall over the past two weeks advocates have put up posters along bus routes that are facing cuts. >> this summer that postering effort has resulted in about 100 emails a day to elected officials and more recently to yourselves asking for the transfer of funds from the general reserve to sfm to budget next year. >> city hall is hearing this need and supervisors have voiced interest in making this happen. >> i urge you to work with the board of supervisors and mayor lurie to make that transfer a reality. it will allow us to avoid

spending s.f. mta reserve funds saving those funds for when we need them the most. the $322 million budget deficit in fiscal year 27. >> that said, i was deeply frustrated also to see the parking revenue option removed preemptively from this week's presentation. >> this board has already approved that extension to both meter hours and days in 2023 as part of its earlier response an earlier response to this crisis that was never implemented. >> had it been implemented we would have tens of millions of additional dollars in our budget today. >> instead we're presented with options to cut school crossing guards, cancel light installations at bus stops and equity priority neighborhoods also not acceptable and to reduce maintenance in downtown stations. none of this is aligned for transit first city vision a city still working on vision zero has not found success yet and affordable city is public

transit not forcing people to drive or reducing safety around schools from drivers who are too rushed to look out on their way to work. >> let's work together to find the funding we need not cut critical services and programs. thank you. thank you. next speaker hello. hi may with a meeting nominee for forever campaign we need to find other funding sources like a general fund transfer even tapping to emergency funds to prevent any service cuts this summer. why? because of the uncertainty on addressing that 322 million deficit these summer cuts are going to become permanent and we're basically giving the public about less than a month to decide on something life changing. this also includes the school crossing guards program. we can add that 15 million from the reserve or general fund transfer to that 322 million because that number seems to keep going up. i remember starting a 215 million. that being said, the focus for

the year should be engaging the public on the worst case scenario and develop a transparent procedure to determine what to cut while finding funding if there's a year long public outreach and of the worst case scenario making it more real for san franciscan then it should spur people into action or get support who never funding options are available. it's what happened inside the working group that we can emulate san francisco wide in memory serves me right. i remember members seem to be open to parking reforms. if you look at the dart voting most people are for that. >> what we are doing right now with options one and two are pitting writers against writers writers against schools, writers against parents, writers against students and most of all san franciscans against s.f. mta. find another source that doesn't result into cuts until we have exhausted all our revenue options and let us use the rest of the year engaging the public and the public can decide which we can stomach

stomach more a reduction in services and programs or shared the burden of increased revenue. i think that door handle is about to fall off. i tap into my savings, find an increase a revenue source because it's important to me to maintain it and that's how we should treat our public services and our public transit. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon directors and congratulations director kirschbaum zach lipton i have to say i'm really disappointed in that big blue slide saying that evening and sun parking meters aren't being considered because of community opposition. >> it strikes me as a poor negotiated tactic to take an option off the table from the start but more importantly there's obviously very strong community opposition to cutting muni service. so why does community opposition mean that charging for curb space is unthinkable but strong community opposition doesn't mean that major service cuts or cutting crossing guards is out of the question. >> frankly, that doesn't remotely live up to the agency's status values. the transportation policies

enacted by our board of supervisors and the transit first policy in the city charter. why do i have to pay the bus to ride the bus at night and on sundays when parking is free? >> curb space is one of the most valuable assets that this agency controls and this slide presentation says to give it away for private use while axing transit service or crossing guards. >> crossing guards frankly are more important than free parking. >> but of course we still have that 15 million dollar gap and a much larger cliff staring us in the face given the good faith that the agency is showing with the 35 million worth of cuts here, i hope that the agency and the board can work with the board of supervisors to transfer the 15 million from the general fund reserves to help bridge the gap to a 2026 funding measure. activists are excited to go to the board to help fight for this but if that doesn't pan out then charging for the parking must be on the table before any transit service cuts . >> thank you. thank you. next speaker hello.

good evening. my name is zoran milledge. i'm a parent of a first grader from alamo elementary in richmond. >> so i'll be honest i don't know our crossing guards name. i meet her once a day, maybe twice we say hello. i don't know what she does outside of those hours but i know that she shows up dutifully and she does her work that helps my son and myself start our day and for my son to finish his school day. i can tell you something about the clement street which is the street that we cross it is a relatively busy street that as of late became a bit more a bit busier. there were some improvements done on clement street, some stop signs were added which did

slow down the traffic which is good for pedestrians but it can make drivers impatient and anxious which is bad for pedestrians and school guards are an important catalyst that allow traffic and kids to navigate the intersection especially early in the morning when even some parents are rushing through to drop their kids off and move on with their day. so i would say that this regarding the potential for worse traffic outcomes is a failure of imagination that we should not allow. and one more thing i would like to point out and that is i found out about this yesterday afternoon which was even too late for me to leave a written comment for you and i would love for this conversation to

be held in schools with parents who are probably most affected by this and not here where maybe some of them even cannot be present, cannot take time of day to tell you what they think. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. next speaker. high commissioners on a spot can d5 resident i'm not going to echo what folks said about crossing guards and the importance of them. my mom was a crossing guard so i know all too well but one of the options that was put forward was reducing or eliminating the subsidy for low income folks who have had their cars towed and i hadn't heard that discussed. so i figured i would just make mention of the fact that if that subsidy is removed a lot of those folks are using that their cars, their vehicles for

commuting for potentially a place to rest their head at night. and if we were to remove that subsidy which i think can only be used a few times anyways like the first or second term i'm not quite sure but that could exacerbate the situation on our street with homelessness. you know if you can't commute to your job and you lose your job because of that or keep moving becomes so difficult for you that you know it becomes infeasible depending on or if it's your work vehicle or something like that you know this could really yeah exacerbate our homelessness issue and i just hadn't heard that discussed tonight so i just figured i would mention them. >> thank you. thank you.

any more speakers in the room seeing none. i do have one accommodation request. speaker you've been unmuted. this is for item 14 the financial update line or no i can think of other sources of revenue. i think that nearly managers that make up a $100,000 salary should not get any responses. secondly, the bicycle coalition should not receive any funding and in fact should pay for being in parking and three work and those should be transferred to the position of the police department in addition, i would like to see a project that is not funded frozen and totally there shouldn't have this crime. secondly, it's not closed down the subway until this crisis is

passed this evening. now the bus is really sacked by the bus. they have the need to use them i that for we've made so many sacrifices the motorists have made sacrifices. what parking their blood and as far as i can see and it's time this part is stepped up to the plate this is only fair i think the sacrifice should be common to all parties. so i think in the sake of equity what do you think you know additional speakers. >> thank you secretary silver so i would take the public for for coming the board is going to take a 15 minute recess will

reconvene at 1010 before the hour. there's do you have any additional questions or comments? >> director hemminger thank you madam chair. >> i do have a few comments and well look first of all i want to express my appreciation to our staff for being responsive to us and where we were at the last meeting if i recall correctly as we had three options that all had transit cuts and now we've got two out of the three that don't . and so look, i'm going to chalk that up as some progress but we are still entering the land of only bad options and in that

context, let me just briefly comment on each of the three options that are before us at this meeting. the first one which is the cut option i just can't support when we have other options to pursue and i think our first priority in this exercise is to protect the service and honor the promises that we've made to the public and the voters about what they'll get for their tax money. >> the second option i can live with the non transit cuts except for the crossing guards and i think everybody who came today said except for the crossing guards i was one of them in the 1960s if you can believe it. and i loved it. so i'm still loyal to the crossing guards. and the third option which is the one i think we should pursue these are operating reserves and they are commonly called rainy day funds and the

only thing i guess i can say is it's raining, it's raining a lot and i don't avoid the conclusion that it might rain in the future and so we need some money for the future to but what we're talking about here is a relatively small amount of money in the scheme of things it's 10% of the current reserve total which leaves 90% for all the horror shows that that we pay to worry about every day and night. i also wanted to say a couple of things about the reserve option and i don't believe we can cut our way to victory at the ballot box. i think we need to start to come together now as a community and as a city if we're going to have any chance at all of getting something

through the legislature. first of all and then on the ballot. second of all and then when third of all for any money to show up at our doorstep at all. what's interesting and i think what's valuable about the third option is it's the only one that helps us solve the underlying problem with revenue because if we can keep faith with the voters and if we can start to build a coalition around the solution then i think we've got a chance in november of 2026. so i do see the third option as the best of the bad ones and i think it's it's it's importance has to do with the fact again that it can allow us to put together that coalition and allow us the best chance possible and we're going to

need it. the polling that we've heard about is pretty sketchy right around 50%. so someone's going to have to go out and collect a whole bunch of signatures just to get it on the ballot if we get it through the legislature i'm repeating myself but i'll repeat myself once more before i'm done which is i don't think we want to do anything as they say about doctors first do no harm. i think that is our first mission here is to do no harm to the projects and programs and especially the transit service that is such a lifeline for so many people in this city. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, director hemminger director henderson. >> thank you. i have a question about the third option. could you explain saying what? >> why? could you explain i guess you

provide an example of sort of on the slide deck about who would be who could potentially be impacted by that option? can you explain why was not a first option or you know, presented in the a couple of weeks ago like is there something that we should be that should be top of mind with that option that you know, would make us not want to select that over one of the others? >> i would say looking at the solution to 2627 i do not see a package that completely solves our problem with revenue only the math is not there. >> so if the math is not there for a revenue only option that means that in the long term we cannot support the level of

service that we are now providing. and so you know, director hemminger raises a good point. the the polling is challenging and certainly we don't want to do anything that endangers the polling. but there is also concern that if the polling that that if the revenue measure does not come to pass and particularly because i do not see a package that is revenue only that means that there will be some level of cuts and in the absence of the reserve the cuts will be deeper, faster and harder. and so there will be more challenging to absorb. you know it's kind of like can you put the brake when you come to a stop sign you stop parked

the way down the block and slowly press the brake. you don't drive all the way up to the stop sign and then hit the brake right before you cross. >> so it's you know, i think it's not an easy choice by any stretch of the imagination and it's really the board's thinking about where we're best positioned because you're choosing between two bad things. >> mm hmm. okay. thank you. i i that that's very helpful. i think that, you know, i sort of feel like ditto with um yeah, ditto with everything that you said and um and especially underscoring this is, you know, lining up a bunch of bad decisions again for us to choose you know, which one do we you know which

one do we want to pick? and um, i don't want to make you know, i feel uncomfortable about making a decision at the expense of others because i do think that transit is primary and first and at the top of the list but it can't be at the expense of safety or you know, um or just you know, at the expense of all of the other programs that we have and um i hope that we can explore at some point soon um some of the revenue options that are not available to us right now because i, i, i think that the the idea of cuts is just so uncomfortable year after year to continue to do that and continue the um the

progress and the great sort of reputation and credibility that the agency has built especially during a time of you know over the past four years it's hard to build that um credibility amongst the public um for such you know the type of service that we provided and yet the agency did that and it just feels a little bit like um cutting is is working to reverse that. >> um i also you know move by the sort of outpouring of the support for the crossing guard program. um and i think that it is very important to me to to have the impact in the neighborhoods and in the communities as much as there is you know there's so much focus on improving downtown and i get it but i think that we have to um really

continue to do the work that we've done to make neighborhood safe streets in the neighborhoods in particular, you know, um, safe for people pedestrians for cyclists and for drivers and i think you know what i've seen since i've been on this board is a lot of work towards that and improving neighborhood conditions that um, you know even with the sort of concessions or the adjustments that you made regarding daylighting like i think that there is goodwill build you know in an effort amongst from this agency to make sure that we are um continuing to build that credibility amongst people in their communities as much as we are focusing on improving downtown. i don't want the neighborhoods especially the ones on the edge of the city the west side and the and the east and you know um, you know sort of south by the southern part stations. >> i just don't want to lose

that momentum and it feels like some you know, some of the options just are a little bit of a roadblock. so um anyway i, i, i echo what, uh, director hemingway said and i think that my inclination is to um, use the rainy day fund to plug some of the the holes and and then continue to do the work to get comfortable or identify and then get comfortable with some of the revenue option increasing revenue options that we might have at our disposal and then hopefully getting to work on whatever or whatever we can do within our you know our what we're allowed to do to get something on the wherever the whichever the ballot is or legislatively so that we can, you know, solve the problem and um, i'm hoping that the

work of the the well i appreciate the being reminded about the muni funding working group and going back and being able to listen to the the tapes because i think that the um there's so much support for the revenue actions and less for for the cuts obviously and so maybe there's something in there that we can you know we can identify the the thing that will be able to get across the finish line um because i just don't know that we can afford to um to reverse or it just feels like a little bit of a reversal of all of the work that you put in over the past four years to build the relationship with the public to to then turn around and start chipping away at that. so um thank you chair thank you. >> director hensley please

thank you and chair and i do want to start by thanking our staff for being responsive to our request in in showing us different hypothetical code packages that could work as we had requested it for our prior meeting as it it doesn't mean we're going to do we're going to give any of our options but we did just want to see the options and so i didn't just want to emphasize the staff was being or is be responsive to the request that the board had made and i appreciate them for that. i'm like oh god i think incur what i my my colleague director condition and we're to a lesser

extent you i believe little bit more skeptical about using all all the reserves at its full capacity as proposed option 315 million of the reserve just a little much when we don't know what is on the horizon with regard to um our our our the entirety of our funding both at all levels really so i is i could also support option to finance the crossing guard and then maybe using the portion of the reserves that would have 1:00 guard to cover

the whole with the rest of the service cuts into the open space that um were in a world where were we to make certain that in the future that men want to save for seven or whatever down the dow down the road i wouldn't want to just you know have folks you know, wake up on a saturday when the new service came in and realize that there's service and all of a sudden been cut off and so i worry a little bit that you know, in the future if we do have to make they would be out if we're cutting a greater percentage of the service when we actually do have to when we actually that actually does happen well and if that

actually does have our course, we're going to do whatever we can to win that. >> but i, i just that that occurs that occurs to me sometimes so i think at least i have now events certified and then i do again appreciate the staff for bringing a proposal the sort of the thoughts to consider. >> so for us thank you director lindsay director kahana thank you madam chair. thank you bree for being so responsive to the rest of the team and julie for your leadership too and just be so responsive to what we're asking here. we're like give us different options. this is like a tough choice and we need to see everything put everything on the table so we could really make solid choices here. >> i hear what you're saying,

bree and i would say i concur with director lindsay that it's it is a lot of money to remove from our reserves in a moment when we don't know how much of it we have to leverage and you know just meeting with the team and everyone else like i do here you loud and clear and it's been repeated to me multiple times that revenue is not going to solve new revenue solutions aren't going to solve like our our issue and there's a lot at risk there to get us there and so i, i too am a little hesitant to just take it all out of the reserves, right? that's said you know, i am really moved by everything that we heard today from members of the public and hearing from colleagues like kaleena fisher who you know their their board is also going through really tough times too and and really trying to, you know, shape our decision making around our values like what is our value

set? what are the things that we want to ensure we maintain or we adhere to during this really tough moment where we have to make tough decisions? and so, you know, i, i would propose to my colleagues that we think of you know, if there's like a way instead of it being like a 10% that were there were drivers reserves making it's a 5% or maybe it's something that just like a little bit more digestible something a risk that we feel we can take that staff also feels okay that we can take as well and thinking about different the different levers that you've given us here to pull right so you know i, i agree that we can't compromise pedestrian safety. we can't compromise public safety too. so like the lighting the the shelter lighting and things like that i don't think is a good idea to to remove those types of programs and connectivity you know, service like i don't think that's something we should compromise on but looking at

the different options laid before us, you know, i, i am curious to understand what the vintage canceling the venture to historic rebuild and delaying that face to midlife for so i like that option what does that truly mean and what does that entail um because i don't that particular solution i don't see it you know going against those values that i just outlined and i do see that as like a possible lever we can pull. but trying to think of solutions there that that don't go against our values in this moment like if you don't have to sacrifice our values now let's not do that then let's try to figure out a way to to still solve our issues, make tough choices but do it in a way that still adheres to our values. thank you for that question. you know, we we do have a goal of fixing things before they break and the midlife overhaul programs are are an example of that. it then over time pays off in

terms of operating costs because we spend less money to maintain those vehicles and it also helps with rider trust that that that being said you know we do think that delaying the midlife is is okay and that that's we we have seen strong performance on the vehicles that we have and so pushing out but not eliminating that expenditure we felt made a lot of sense to bring to you. we also have not done a a midlife before on the historic vehicle so this would have been kind of a a new investment and we felt given all of the difficult trade offs that we made, you know, maybe this wasn't the year we went for we

go from a b to a b plus, you know, so for for that reason we are yeah we included that in in option two as we look at the fiscal year 27 packages canceling or deferring capital work is going to be one of the tools that we bring you. it was what we found through this exercise is it does require some lead time because there isn't a lot of capital money that is liquid that doesn't require reaching out to our partners that you know, isn't encumbered or committed to a project. as we think about fiscal year 26. so we do think it is unfortunately one of the difficult, you know, trade offs that we're we're going to need

to evaluate. but the reason that it's this modest amount is because of the timing. right. and as we look to the next two year budget will have i think more more flexibility, right? >> so if we can find more solutions like that basically like let's let's try to consider you know, i do think it is prudent to draw from reserves but i wonder if we could like lower that draw even more by activating some of the other solutions that we have here before us and doing kind of a good combo there just with you know if we say okay we're good with canceling the vintage historic rebuild where i worry and we look for 3.5 so we cut down that draw by by 50% to 5% you know maybe that's that's that's the move so i just want to put that forth before like

the team just so i am really concerned about the the more enormous number that we have to tackle and just all the risk factors that go into actually finding a solution there. and what if they don't materialize? as you know and i am really concerned about that piece so i know we have to take, you know, steps now but as much as we could try to manage how much we're drawing from reserves, i think that it's there. but let's let's be cautious about how we do it too. let's just proposing that to the rest of the team. yeah, that's it. >> director chin thank you. >> chair for option two i think you mentioned some of the tow subsidy. some of them are for low income but i also understand that there's some of it it's not necessarily low income. there's like a first time to a discount. so if if we partition the tow subsidy line item in option two

into the low income and the non low income, what do we what sort of breakdown does that look like? >> could as i go back to the powerpoint please i thought you might want to know so i have come prepared with a slide and so there are a number of subsidies that we provide for tow. i believe it's about $15 million worth of subsidies off the top of my head somewhere between 8 and 15 and the we're proposing to reduce or slightly alter many of them. so for example the first time tow that would be completely eliminated that would be the value of 0.9 million to 900,000 then there would be a reduction of the low income tow subsidy. >> so currently the low income

the the subsidy is so deep that the mta ends up paying for the cost of the vendor. so what we're proposing is to reduce the subsidy such that the first low income tow that the low income tow would pay less than full freight but would at least cover the actual cost to perform the tow in addition and the low income tow currently is infinite you could get your total your car towed many many times and as long as you can demonstrate that you're low income you would continue to get that subsidy. we would propose having it be a one time only subsidy and that would generate point six so point nine for eliminating the first time tow 1.5 for reducing the low income subsidy so that the tow would cover at least the vendor the agency's costs

the out of pocket limiting the low income waiver such that would apply only once instead of infinitely. >> and then lastly when your vehicle is still when one's vehicle is stolen and then gets towed and you can and you pay to get your car out, you can give that to your insurance company and your insurance company will reimburse you for that cost. instead the agency has been letting people take their car without paying the fee. so essentially this is actually a subsidy to the to the vehicle insurance companies not to the act, not to the actual person whose vehicle was stolen and then it got you know, when it got when the person who stole it was done with it, they just dumped it somewhere and then it got towed. >> and so that's the value of point two. >> so all in that's how we get to the 3.2.

>> okay those seem i don't know maybe my colleagues will chime in afterwards but those you know of of all the bad options those seem least of actionable and you know we could we could i assume assume given after after board discussion we might not go all the way on all the items but you know i my direction would be that seems like a place where you can find something and then i think there was some discussion about the as opposed to the crossing guard program it used to be how much so how much of the program currently is funded by mta versus other departments. so the current program is intended to receive about a half $1 million a year from the school district. that cost came as the demand for crossing guards increased.

we had a an agreement to share 5050 any new requests for crossing guards. so the school district was not paying the full cost of the program but they were paying 50% of any kind of incremental growth since the mou has been in place last year they were able to reimburse us about 75,000 of that $500,000 agreement. and theoretically in terms of other sources if the agency pursues other sources, this could be department of children, youth and families. this could possibly be a speedy is that is that what staff are considering? >> there has been some discussion at the citywide level of using the children's fund baseline to fund this cost. >> i know the controllers currently doing a study to as it turns out because the children's fund baseline was

legislatively established in the charter it's the devil's always in the details so the details are being worked through because i think last year we did the voters did approve the charter baseline very 4 to 4 children for funding children and they increased that significantly. so i don't think so. i think i would i hope other directors would agree that we that i hope mta also pursues that and it feels that that feels less objectionable as one of the program items i would note though that the the the administration it is both an administrative and a policy decision that would not be made by the mta administratively. what services are eligible for that funding is determined by the comptroller and from a policy perspective how those funds are allocated across the comptroller sent out a survey to all city departments. are there any funds that support children, youth and family?

are there any programs that you run that are within this rubric? and so then it would be a policy decision for the mayor's budget office about so these are the things that could possibly be funded the comptroller says okay, legislatively this is what actually fits the bill literally and then a smaller subset would then be chosen by the mayor's budget office during the budget development process which for the city ends in june how those resources would be allocated. thank you. and then i think there have been this there's been some public comment thinking about for example and i've heard some chatter from from in the news about for example trying to win some funding for transit in the state budget if some funding for transit maybe in out of general fund in the budget process to do with those stuff have any idea you know where those are what the likelihood of that is of getting additional of getting additional funds beyond i think what's budgeted.

i think that this city's facing over $1 billion of deficit in the next three years and the mayor has said more clearly than i've ever heard any other mayor say before him to be quite honest that he plans to truly balance the budget and not use one time sources partly because so many prior budgets depended on one time sources. the one time sources are almost used up and so we've gotten to the point where the rubber hits the road. but i think also from a policy perspective he believes that the right thing to do is to fund the level of service that you have the resources for. >> so i think it will be a policy discussion at the city level among what are all very important services ranging from homelessness to safety in the

streets to transportation and it's truly a competition one of many critical policy needs where the need is just greater than the resources available and that the city is going to have to be making some really difficult policy choices . and the mayor did go to the state and did a great job advocating for resources from the state budget which they got incredible good news and managed to a surplus kind of manifested surprisingly due to the wages of high income earners. but i will say that i attended the city's budget briefing last week and they do kind of a financial outlook and there's an analysis of revenues at the federal level, revenues at the state level and then revenues at the at the local level

and the state's economist came and described some of the you know from her view what the state's finances look like. and i think that the fires in l.a. were a pretty significant game changer because of the you know, the fair housing insurance pool has now been completely tapped. >> and so if another wildfire or earthquake or other disaster happens that fund is tapped and l.a. needs an incredible amount of resources to recover and there's a lot of concern that federal policy regarding immigration is going to make the workers that build housing unlike less likely to work either because they are not present or because they are choosing not to leave their homes and that is going to drive up the cost of the

recovery. so i think there's a lot of concern about how the response to the l.a. fire is going to end and how immigration policy is going to impact the state's resources because of the potential impact on the state's economic activity which is, you know, depends on the demographics of your workforce. >> so there feels like a lot of uncertainty at the state level. >> thank you. and then two more questions so that in your experience given the uncertainty, what is the likelihood that the agency may need to break glass and pull from the reserves in the next in the coming fiscal year or two? fiscal years? oh, okay. i take that question back. >> i, i mean i think bri has

already shared with you all how she views the reserve as as the cfo and i think the policy decision on whether or not we use it at this juncture or juncture moving forward really resides with the board at bri at this point guidance is that given our high level uncertainty with federal funds and other sources and given that we don't see a full revenue solution and given the kind of vulnerability at the ballot, she wouldn't recommend it. >> and i think you need to balance that with director hemminger is point which is that it's a small portion of the reserve and we are laser focused on building consensus towards the ballot. so it it's it's a hard choice and i don't think it's

something that break and predict at this juncture. >> thank you. >> and then for the okay my last question is that you know we have options one, two, three we have the unlabeled option for which which is about parking meter hours and is and the concerns and the feedback is that based on the 2023 conversation or is that based on more research i think it's a it's based on a number of things. >> i think the polling we just got back identifies affordability as a key concern. i think the last several elections show a voter map that has a strong geographical pattern that we need to overcome and and then it also is based on some of the

feedback that we heard both in in 2023 but also in some of these board meetings as it relates to the perspective of drivers. >> thank you. all right. i'm going to wash my $0.02 and i think i might be going against the rest of the board here is is i find it very uncomfortable to be pulling from our reserves because it's something that we can see coming and we should be able to versus there are so many things that we may not or not we may not be able to see coming in the next two years. you know, if we're facing a rainy day right now, the next year or two is is like is like catastrophic flooding like like the like the dam above us like falling over the um i i i i'm very i've seen in my experience in the city right lots of agencies have poured from the reserves and kept kept have

kept away sort of the time to pay the piper you know sfa u.s. city college sometimes even parts of the city and i find it and as for good governance and also as as being a fiduciary with our fiduciary duty i, i find it very uncomfortable to to balance the $50 million fully on reserves i i, i agree that we want to make sure that we have vote that we want the best we we want to put our best foot forward with the voters but at the same time if only 20% of voters have heard about the 78 fiscal crisis according to the polling, if that was if that was right, then then there's a lot of people who haven't heard about it and i and my fear is that actually by keeping service at at high and maybe even unsustainable levels that we that we are doing the public and voters a disservice by pretending that everything is fine when actually you know despite despite what we know as the financial situation here it seems like the that that the

public everything looks like business as usual it it's um and and you know we've been on borrowed time since 2020 because we have one time state and federal covid funds but um and i don't know if it's really gotten through to the public that this is happening. um and i think having this conversation and being forced to prioritize, you know, what sort of service do we want you know if we have to choose between these things on our budget items what do we what do we need to prioritize? is it ridership? is it equity? is it coverage? is it frequency? um, you know those those things i think we really do need to have those conversations and you know instead i would really you know, i understand that the parking meters are are a tough topic but you know what i would like are advocates and i like to have a city conversation is not necessarily oh let's just it's cuts our reserves because reserves are

they're not bloodless they're they are right they're us robbing from our future selves . um it is thinking about okay well can we can we think about cuts or revenue measures and having this discussion as a public as a as a voting body of of who we're rather would we rather fund free parking or would we rather fund the rather fun connected bus service that's i would i would rather us have this conversation now i think i think pulling from reserves is an easy decision but we are in a time where we have to make hard decisions and by pushing by by just saying okay reserves great. i'm afraid that it's going to make our future decisions as a body. you know i might not be there right? but like our future are the future board have to deal with much harder with much harder decisions and i would not wish that on on ourselves and also on the voters and on the public i think i think having the

prioritization being able to be and and really making i think what the challenges are real to people is very important for the future long term sustainability and that i'll go back to you future thank you everybody. i, i don't have a lot to add. i i i i generally share director chen's concern about drawing from the from a reserves too much i think that you know a measured draw is something i could support covering the whole 15 million i would not be able to support but i feel like there are you know a number of options here that are worthy of of consideration including some

modest service cuts. some of those as i as i read through them, you know, where where lines have parallel service for example, you know, that seemed something that was worth looking at but it it's my hope that we can get to the 15 by combining some of these options and that would be my request. >> you know including some some drive the reserves including some cuts including some of these, you know difficult things not including school crossing guards certainly including alternative funds for

the school crossing guards. >> one of the things that i i feel like i notice looking at this is you know, we have a lot of our budget line items are in you know, they're not our sole responsibility. so school crossing guards is a good example. i was asking director kirschbaum earlier today about why the union square garage wasn't listed in our revenue and the answer came that that i that probably that's because it's a rare compaq facility that we operate for them so these you know collaborations if you will you know that is you know where everybody's suffering you know including the school board we just need

to i think understand those those nuances maybe a little bit better shared maintenance with bart who is also suffering at our our downtown stations these are these are things to look at but i'm also mindful of the time if there are going to be any service cuts they need to be planned for in as quickly as possible. there's hiring of operators, there's planning of schedules which is not a magic wand activity. so i really appreciate my colleagues really thoughtful approach to this but i also just want to remark amber as a

as a board that there's only so much that the staff can do to make make impossible things happen. i am curious about i know that many of these options have been reviewed by the muni funding working group and there has been some polling on within that group of of what how they feel about some of the different options and i wonder if there's any insight that would be helpful to our board i can tell you a few things though what we remember and i think very good you reminded us of it last time that we need funding working groups.

our primary task is to look at the long term funding deficit right? so the 300 plus million dollars that we have so the more immediate cuts we feel a couple of them at a high level so we we've seen a couple of we've seen the toy one and for example and i believe were there were also i found we i believe they're pretty broad pretty broad support for that. we see some to some degree that historically we and i and a of those conversations that a lot of the option to cuts were were new to director heather and i

assembled from our meeting funding group and so it was yeah i don't know dragomir i don't know if you have anything that but the through the chair i, i concur with your your quick summary there and i do think we've got two different activities they're looking at a $300 million bogey and we're looking at a $15 million bogey that's a lot different. >> i have seen some of the ideas that have been presented in those sessions sort of migrate into some of these laundry lists of various non transit cuts. we could do so there is some crosstalk and it's not surprising since it's the same staff staffing both both bodies . i think it's also the case that

in terms of balance around the city and interests around the city this is a very friendly hometown crowd for transit and all the major unions are there. and so in terms of some of the concern i've heard from colleagues about demographics of our support and our weakness ,i'm not sure that group reflects them as as best as it could and i again think as others have said that it's a pretty important group to keep leaving out of deals and i and look, i don't want to double dip i guess i'd be taking advantage of director kinsey's question so i'll just stop there if i if i may the

optimizing of the existing parking solutions that that's in the base 35 million that that concept was presented to the muni funding working group and did was one of the options that had more support. >> thank you. yes we've we've seen that i believe and i believe that that going back to meetings and that's part of the 35 yeah that was the christine or i said curve i've got the here we go so that would be you know a i do to your point director chen want to point out that the overall problem is 50 million there was a group of 35 million that we felt were the the options that had the smallest trade offs and in end of those

items there mostly 18 of the 35 is around parking optimization and. all right, thank you. and just one other thing about the auto subsidy subsidies. what i had heard more than eliminating auto subsidies was some savings that might be garnered from not providing seven day a week access or tow vehicle retrieval of vehicles. yes. so we in in part of our brainstorming work and also at the muni funding working group we had looked at going from the ability for somebody to get their car 24 seven to having you know, five day a week just daytime coverage.

but we had a hard time mapping out the full cost savings. it just didn't feel ready for this meeting. so it's something we're going to continue to evaluate but we did not put it into option two primarily because of the time constraints. okay. so it sounds like the board has a number of different opinions . so i you know, i appreciate staff wrestling with that. can we talk just a little bit more about that the schedule here when this how this i know we covered it in the presentation but it's important to go over again because not all of us are going to be able to be present on the fourth

and then also on the 18th. so yes so one of the things that i kind of related to the schedule is the the first 35 million while it is not as difficult as the the 15 it maybe isn't fair to characterize it as particularly easy either. i mean there's some things in there like what does $5 million of contract savings look like? you know, what are the full details of the parking optimization so we are doing that hard work now and we'll bring you back those details so that you fully understand how we are trying to make this a whole holistic solution and not just transit riders or not just people paying for parking and not just you know, our own internal ability to respond to

to needs as they arise. so the the march 18th meeting would unpack some of those details as well as if if the board did recommend continuing to pursue service cuts that's when sean and team would present you know this is this is what a final package would look like and that's intended to give us a couple of weeks then to get the title six analysis done to confirm that there are no disproportionate impacts or burdens on people from low income households or people from protected classes. >> the so because of the kind

of wanting to keep this schedule if we do pursue service cuts we were hoping to have a decision on funding options at the march 4th meeting and does the the time it takes to to enact cuts is it is it less if we are able to find if fewer cuts? >> do you see what i mean? so we have to i think time challenges one is the time to build the schedules and that doesn't change. that's four months but we have some flexible the on the back end on when that gets implemented. so i think we're we're targeting mid-june could also be july. >> the other kind of lever is that we have significantly slowed down operator hiring

and training in anticipation of wanting to achieve these savings through attrition. so if we are not going to be reducing service at the level that we had initially proposed, we would start ramping up hiring to reflect that decision . okay. so that's all of my my questions and i look forward to the next hearing. thank you so oh director hemminger thank you madam chair. >> i'm going to misbehave. i apologize in advance the the question in my mind what i've heard mostly in our conversation today is toggling

between 2 and 3. i haven't heard as much support for option one and i wonder if we could if the staff wants some direction because we're not given a much based on this conversation is there any way we could coalesce around focus less on option one than on two and three? short answer is on my part i would say yes and i think that would probably be the most helpful virtually right now of the together thing two and three yes. >> can we make the reserve hit a little bit less by fact some other non transit cuts? right. i think that's a profitable place to look and it's i think that's where i'm seeing the common thread right now as well. and in terms of what from two two to pull out i think that's the part where we're not all aligned for instance i don't think personally that well yes

i think we're all aligned with the crossing guards like not eliminating that but i, i i'm concerned about reducing eliminating toe subsidies and the bus lighting program. i think those things i wouldn't support at this point and reducing maintenance on part immunizations i some deferred maintenance makes sense but i don't know if this one is the one that makes the most sense but i that's where i would defer to julie on that point i do think that first one canceling the vintage historic rebuild makes the most sense for me and i think that it tracks with what you're also thinking. julie so i think that makes sense but i think we still need to figure out which of option to is digestible for the rest of the board. >> but let me and this may be to find a point i don't know but my concern is if we if we touch transit at all that's

going to be the headline we cut transit whether we cut it by 15 or 13 or 7 or 2. so if we could find a path where we we just leave it alone and focus our fire on two and three, it seems to me that that might be the making of a consensus. well i heard director chen express a a different point of view and i, i appreciate your your point that you know any cut will be a headline and and the the damage that is done in terms of fear and and pushback

in the public will be won't won't be you know measured against the the the size of the cut at the same time we we do you know make changes to our service on a fairly regular basis so yeah it's the whole point of this is that it's hard it's very very hard and i am i am concerned about tapping into the reserves. first of all it's a one time solution at a time when we need ongoing solutions and um but i, i hope i was clear in my

and what i expressed which is that i think we may need to do that. i just i think we need to make it as small as possible. i agree with director kina that the the option number one in the midlife bus overhaul i mean that's a $4 million bite out of the apple that's that gets us you know, almost a third of the way there. >> and if there are other options the toe i hate to i just know that the what happens to people if they don't have that subsidy is can be life

changing in terms of not making the rent or not affording medication or you know these are these are very important lifelines but it is you know a smaller number of people you know, it's only the people who get their car towed i think an indefinite you know, you can have your car towed an indefinite number of times seems it seems a little like too much so yeah, i will say there's one thing i would look at there's a part of me that's also feeling like a lot of the the fair inspection work that we're doing is working. like if i'm looking at the trends here it does seem like you know, the number of inspections are increasing and there there's positive results that are coming out of that and there is a big part of

me that also just wants to give that a little bit more time just to see how effective that is. and i also want to give the process of the bigger question of the the 300 million x amount of money and the giant elephant in the room like i want to give that a little bit more time to cook and i feel like we have a process by our board uh our board retreat to to really take a deeper dive and come up with like a more i guess with a firmer strategy around cuts that we could implement incrementally based on the feedback the we're also hearing from the muni funding working group and i and so i there's a part of me that just wants to give that process a little bit more time and buy a little bit more time for that as well and that's that's part of the reason why i don't think transit you know as we're looking at ways to um have the

the public understand the situation we're in i'm not sure if transit is the place to do it just now. i think it may be a good lever that we have to pull at some point and that's just you know, the numbers are telling us that that's what that's what they're telling us. but i don't know if at this juncture that's the lever we need to pull or just right now i'm trying to buy a little time honestly, i think that's a big part of the exercise right now right. and if it pleases the directors ,maybe maybe we should have a series of votes so the question i think question one might be do the directors agree on on making any cuts to transit in june and then depending and then if yes or no then then the question then then the next questions of where to pull from options 2 or 3 will become more evident. um it might not be possible

because of how the items agenda is so um but i'll defer to to stephanie on that. >> i was going to say are we allowed to take informal vote? >> yeah not this evening. i'm sorry i don't know if this is yeah yeah. >> so this evening because this item was agenda is as a presentation for your information this is this would not be the opportunity to take a vote on any particular action an option would be to ask staff to come back with a revised timeline of the schedule that they've put in the presentation and that that might take into consideration your proposal that you make. if i understood your your suggestion it sounds like you'd like to take a one vote at a particular time and then have another vote pending the outcome of um well it sounded

like the two major decision points or at least voted for the consensus to get a majority of the directors is is should there be any cuts to transit and then if there are no cuts to transit then how much from the reserves versus versus other items in option two? well those seem that seem to be maybe the easiest break points to to channel the conversation but i'm happy but if that's not true then maybe i'll throw back otherwise it feels like we were throwing out to say oh well 5 million from option b, 5 million from option c like right it's how do we how do we give staff direction for our next meeting perhaps if folks can relay their guidance to staff in terms of how they're feeling about certain transit cuts and that might be a way to to relay to a firm of the guidance so i can model and start and i would say i, i

would want us to to find a solution that draws from option two and three a combination of those two and try to avoid transit cuts or transit service cuts. i, i would agree i was swayed by director hemminger his point regarding the the media response to service cuts i but i have a second request which is maybe we could we could see two two blended options that you know i think we've we've moved beyond you know 123 into

we we need something that that brings them together and one of them so perhaps we could get two blended options one includes modest service cuts and one has no service cuts is that i think excuse me i think that that is a direction that we could work with and the the timing of that would be for march 4th or march 18th. >> i i'm not the person who has to build the schedule so uh, julie, i would you know it's your call on that's i think we'll do do our best to to to get those done for march 4th but maybe with some council

with the service planning team and the chair we can look at the overall schedule and see if it meets the board's needs and the schedule development needs. all right. thank you and any other that okay okay. >> is there board appetite for option four? >> yes i i, i feel like we should have a i feel like the conversation is worth having but i, i will defer to the rest of the my colleagues i, i i take seriously the staff's feeling on this and i know that it's a very unpopular position

with with some of the advocates and and i have a lot of sympathy for for the point being made but we must be able to pass funding measures with the voters and and i just feel that the risk is too great that's my personal opinion. i will just add like if there is appetite for it again like i agree with chair cha love that uh i defer to staff on this as well but i, i do wonder if there's pockets of the city that have more appetite for this and others perhaps in commercial quarters that do want that that turnover and i just wonder if that's something that the staff has considered but i do think it's a longer discussion that probably

wouldn't make the cut for the march meetings. so i don't know if if it's realistic to consider as an option for this particular scenario. i anticipate we're gonna have many scenarios where this is going to come up in the future so i definitely wouldn't take this off the table as something to consider but i don't know if for this particular moment if this is the scenario we should be exploring given the timeline, the constrained timeline that we have and the type of outreach and engagement we'd have to do to build support. >> yeah i would agree with here wholeheartedly. i think we're going to have plenty of occasions to consider a lot of our pool i think we should keep this work out the table but not worry about it for about two weeks due to one week from now. don't worry about option four but it will we are given i think needed at some point just

not in the immediate term if unless there are any further questions or comments. i believe that completes our final item and i will adjourn. >> thank you very much colleagues, staff members and members of the public. >> our next meeting will be on march fourth

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 finish 11 times.

i don't wish no one to be shot, but it is something that i never get over. the wrap around program really changed my life and they was there for me day one and i thank them so much. i couldn't do it without them. >> wrap around formed as a result of understanding early on in my career that what i was doing as a trauma surgeon was not enough. i needed help. i needed the community that was impacted the most by violence to direct me to understanding what was necessary to be more comprehensive in

creating care for patients and to really change people's life course. >> the number of people coming into the hospital were youth. we wrap our arms around the people who come through so we try to equip with not only services, but just love and you know, we really try to meet their needs. >> we helped support them with services after recovery or while they are here, they need services anywhere from housing to basic needs, clothing, employment. we link to those services in hopes that we don't ever have to see them come back.

>> my biggest wish and goal for the future of the wrap around project is that it wouldn't have to exist. that we wouldn't have anymore violently injured people that our job is trauma surgeons would be defunth. >> to see them start walking again, to see them laughing and being happy, to feel like you know what, this happened to me, but i'm going to make it, you know? i think no amount of money can ever pay us for that. >> it is rewarding to intercede and you know [indiscernible] change the trajectory of a child's life is awesome. we want to give them tools to be productive members of society, and give them a chance to have a future.

>> it gives me joy to be able to be a part of a young person's life and help them map out what their future looks like. you know, you can never get over trauma, but you can live with good amazing life after it and learn

how to manage it and stuff like that, so we hope do that with them. >> mike, you know what, i am a manager now at this job. the job you hooked me up, that is impact. that is a heartfelt, you know what, me work want in vain. that work is unmatched so to speak. >> they like family. they help, they check in, call me, see how i'm doing, you know? and i'm very thankful. they have that good at mosphere

where you don't have to be scared, you don't have to feel you all by yourself, because they there and they have been there. >> 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.

>> my name is alan schumer. i am a fourth generation san franciscan. in december, this building will be 103 years of age. it is an incredibly rich, rich history. [♪♪♪]

>> my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. i am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. i have two ways of looking at my life. i want it to be -- i wanted to be a fashion designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both. i ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn,

big changes, and now i am here. the work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the garment industry. i had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. it is almost like an extended family. i have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. she was a dressmaker of the first order. i would go visit her, and it was a special treat. i was a tiny little girl. i would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time,

girls did not wear pants. the garment industry had the -- at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. you will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. there was a woman by the name of diana. she was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. she classified it as a third i.

will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of san francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. i believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. >> the board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. jeffrey heller, the city and county of san francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. >> to impart to the history of this building is remarkable.

to see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you start talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. with children, and i do mainly all of the children's tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can start talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of san francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor.

>> at times, my clothes make me feel powerful. powerful in a different sense. i am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. i have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit? retirement to me is a very strange words. i don't really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing

honor of working in the people's palace. you want a long-term career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something you're then yourself. follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way.

>> 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.

television. >> (music). >> hi, i'm - welcome to the to san francisco in-person a roundtable person about