we have the chinatown library. we have the chinatown ymca. our personal and individual stories are not reflected in our community institutions. our personal, individual stories have been overlooked. we feel very strongly that we need to begin to claim our history, claim our story, and claim our heroes. betty ann ong, a native daughter, is a hero, and should be honored with the naming of the chinese rec center in her honor. we further urged that in the future, a broader recognition of her heroism be reflected. thank you. president buell: thank you. >> richard? >> good morning, commissioners. i came in today to try to talk about this subject matter. i am not necessarily in favor of this project. we have already listened to this issue many times before this commission. just last monday, i went to the council. there was a consensus -- i asked the consensus be brought before the members of chinatown. it was not in favor of the name change. a few things that would have been brought in had to do with -- are we going by the right procedure? one of th

i am excited about the changes taking place in chinatown. i think the concept of the motown dinner show, motown in chinatown, is a great idea. it seems fun, exciting, new, and fresh, and will bring diversity into chinatown. i have seen a couple of the other shows -- "assisted living" and "tina and tony." they are great, geared toward mature audiences. it is interactive with the audience. it is very exciting and fresh. tim is a great honor. i love it. thank you. president newlin: i looked through the file. the conditions -- are they somewhere, that you wanted to present? officer maccabaeus, do you want to comment on this -- officer matthias, do you want to comment on this? >> steve matthias, central station. we are in favor of granting the permit. we did less six conditions we would like to review. one thing we wanted to strike is on line five. part of the marketing they do for the theater productions -- they do use a company for the marketing. we did not think it would be fair. i think it is something that helps the business. i want to strike

the m.t.a. refers to a chinatown area transportation study of 1996. once again, the mta completely ignores these reports. mta did not report the day the mti reported in 2002, which was brought up by many of their experts, the fact that they included stockton street traffic signals, transit stop for spacing and relocation be completed in three years. it would have cost $9.1 million. they ignored that. instead, we are looking at $1.62 billion expense. i think the mta has not played with a full deck all along. when it comes to the subway, the subway itself will take longer travel time than the surface by an average of seven minutes, no matter which plan you look at. given this controversy and contradiction, i ask the board of supervisors should apply its due diligence and apply for the independent audit. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon. i am a south of market resident, and a long-time, over 12 years, member of the central subway community advisory group. i just want to say about the community advisory group in all the

the show. we need that in chinatown, this kind of entertainment. the most important thing is i found out that not only is the show we saw a chinese american. we saw a different ethnicities of people that have loved the diversity. we see young people dancing, old people dancing. if you saw me there that day, i was dancing. i was actually standing up there the whole time. do not think senior citizens can hardly walk. i danced hours. i am advocating for seniors to dance and enjoy life. president newlin: thank you very much for your presentation. >> good evening. my name is theresa. i am a san francisco resident. i support imperial palace. i hope you please grant this permit. thank you so much. >> good evening, commissioners. i think you heard it all. we got a lot of support in the community. i think this will bring -- revitalize chinatown. you must unanimously vote yes on this. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is valerie butler. i frequented the imperial palace

the tea has identified the third street corridor with an extension to chinatown as a priority. the need to better serve the chinatown neighborhood was for the necessitated by the 1989 s quick, and since then, the city and mta have explored numerous options for the central subway and conducted comprehensive multilingual public outreach on planning and have coordinated with land use, plant in coordination with the city plan, the downtown plan, the east soma area plan. there has been extended coordination with all of these plans. the project has been fiscally reviewed four years, as has been discussed under the new program. it has a fully committed plan. once opened, the line is projected to be the highest ridership line in the city. the first two construction projects -- excuse me, contracts, are nearly complete. we feel now is the time to support the city opposing goals of enhancing our transit infrastructure system, encouraging people to get out of their cars, and building the needed capacity for this in the future. the mta submitted its final full funding grant request to the g

do you support the central subway rail extension to chinatown? ok. i am going to start by asking you, dennis herrera, you did support it at one point. now you very publicly do not supported. what you tell the people of oregon, perhaps from the southeast section, which will be on the second extension in chinatown or the people in chinatown and have some of the most heavies' it transit rider chavern san francisco that you do not want them to at the subway project? >> what i would say is it is not the same project the voters voted on in 2003 when it was 60 -- 6 and 50 two million dollars, and now it is a $1.6 billion project. and it was supposed to connect communities, and it was supposed to be part of the four corridors' plan. it does not connect communities in my opinion any more because of the route changes and no longer connects directly into connectsmuni metro system. when you look at your overall financial health of the muni, you look at how their routes have changed, you look at projections, and you look at the dramatic cost impact that would occu

the ordinance is mostly on the dance walkable historic neighborhoods, downtown, the chinatown and van ness corridors. it also serves commercial uses or facilitates the preservation and use of historic buildings, and it applies to other neighborhoods. the additional substantive comments will be saved until after that presentation, and i want to offer my thanks to all the colleagues at planning for all of their time and attention on this legislation. i can go over in much detail as you like where we are. we want to continue to engage with many stakeholders, particularly the port which is here, and we are committed to solving any problems they see. i would like to say just a few brief words about process for this legislation, past and future. i heard the commission remarks and public remarks and i wanted to respond to that and give an idea of where we are. this legislation was introduced on may 3, after a drafting process. they made comments at the full board and it received some attention in the media. we have had dozens of conversations and numerous meetings with the stakeholders. that

it has the support of neighborhoods in bayview as well as in chinatown. it the most important thing, and this is where i get disturbed by the criticism, because it sounds like what we used to debate at city hall, where nothing got done about our infrastructure. this is a valuable infrastructure complement to our city's transit system. and we need that infrastructure for the 10,500 new homes that we're already building in bayview. we are congested. you can ride any muni, and you can see that the congestion is there. so the timing is now. the bids have already been in. the first series of bids were below the estimate, because we're moving quickly on it. this is the wrong time to stop a very valuable 45,000 of project that we discussed and approved year-after-year. >> this is a hot-button issue, so go ahead. [applause] >> i decided to weigh in because i felt like i was when addressing here and not someone here to speak to but i agree that we need to invest in infrastructure. when i have spent time talking to merchants in chinatown, one of the big issues, park

we will close escrow on the chinatown station property as of november 1. we have begun three major construction contracts that will deliver the seven construction -- the seven construction contracts that will deliver the program. we have entered into final design, have awarded three major design contracts. the current state of final design completion is 90% complete. also, we have received a letter of no prejudice approval from the fta that will allow us to consider advanced construction which will allow was to put forth the utility contracts in construction and award the requirements for the tunnel contract. a milestone for the project was submission of the full funding grant agreement application to the federal government on september 19 of this year. that represents significant years of hard work from the city community as a whole, that will capture and leverage that have said sales tax leverage that the city began in 1989, to essentially require a $982 million that the federal government had set aside for the delivery of the central subway program. the

we call the richmond district the new chinatown in the 1980's at that time. just being around the tremendous unique neighborhood, and discovering san francisco in the 1980's as i grew up, but i also have been very active as a community organizer. i worked in chinatown, and some first jobs also at the mental health center in the richmond area multi services in the 1980's, and i was also a staff are at the chinatown youth center -- i was also a staffer. a lot of my work has been supporting community empowerment, especially in an immigrant and people of color communities. most recently, i have been teaching at san francisco state. i ran the immigrant rights coalition in the city in the 1990's for several years. i'm also an immigration attorney, and a lot of my passion is supporting in power met for immigrant communities in the city as well. >> why did you choose to live in san francisco? supervisor mar: a lot of people bring this up, but is one of the most exciting, culturally diverse places in the world. learning about new cultures and people from different par

mostly in the building in chinatown. three out of eight businesses that need to be relocated have also been relocated. here you have in front of you the original milestones. we have talked about some of them already. but as you see, to proceed for the union square station, it is expected in september, a year from now, surely followed by the chinatown station and the most ghani station. construction is not scheduled to be completed by november 2017, and they will be in service in december 2018. here you have your funding plan, 1.57 $8 million. as i mentioned earlier, the economy situation, but that the federal level and the state level is costing a certain level of anxiety, i will say. however, the mta and staff have been working productively to look at ways in which any delay or shortfall could be addressed, working with mta, working together to advocate for any fallback position in in case they are needed. that concludes my presentation. i am if available for questions, and the joint program manager for the subway is als