down to the bottom of this figure out what the problem is and a massive report generated called the latham report there's a very good write up on wikipedia and they came up with a completely different way of doing business that's been working very well the last 20 years the way it works is like designer built but very very special basically up to 35 percent design at that point they go to the bids and they carry on working together as they gradually bring the design up to 100 percent that's where the value engineering is working there's all the risk is shared and it worked very very well and extreme familiar with how that works ask them about the new engineering contract then take it from there. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment on this item? >> seeing none we'll move on to regular public comment and this is for matters that are not on today's calendar. >> correct and jim patrick would like to address on this item as well. >> so seeing no members of the public that would like to speak we'll move onto our regular calendar. >> item number 7 authorizing webcor/obayashi as the

penguin press, and his writing has also appeared in the san francisco chronicle, and he's worked at latham's quarterly. it is a delight and a pleasure to have him with us. welcome, ben tarnoff. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction. and thank you all for coming out tonight. i should tell you, i have a little bit of a flu, so if i get a little warm or if my voice gets a little froggy, you'll have to forgive me. mark twain, when he was here in the 1860s in san francisco wrote a very funny sketch called how to cure a cold, and one of the cures was to rub mustard all over your chest. so if things get to that point, i might send someone out for mustard. [laughter] this is my book, "the bohemians," and it tells the story of four young writers in san francisco in the '60s -- 1860s, mark twain, brett hart, charles william stoddard and edith galbraith. one of the things i really looed about this project is that it gave me access to an underknown part of twain's life. i think when we think of twain, we think of the man in the white suit chomping on the cigar with the white hair, the kind of gr

then also i put an amendment into the rules committee, and i got to say the republican congresswoman lathamere her rhetoric is. she says she shpts comprehensive immigration reform, and she was the only republican to vote yes. every chance that i get as a legislator, i'm going to do what i can to make sure we have a vote on comprehensive immigration reform, whether it's in a committee or it's in the budget process, and i hope and pray that we have it on the floor. if we have it on the floor, i think it passes. >> given the gridlock in washington over this and the inability of the white house to do much more just as a practical matter, then that piecemeal set of solutions you talked about, what role do you think states can play? >> well, states, again -- states can do piecemeal. states can go ahead and make sure that what they do at the local level with local law enforcement, like here in los angeles, they don't ask people for their papers. they'll ask you for your driver's license. they'll give you a ticket or what have you, but they won't be asking you like if they were a federal immigratio

am i far right we have matthew brill a partner at latham watkins working for commissioner abernathy and then we have sarah morris who is with the new america foundation and congressional staff. ahead of congressional relations is also named sarah morris but they are totally different people so keep that in mind. this is not the congressional relations fcc. then we have markham erickson a partnered steptoe and johnson and gus hurwitz a professor at the university of -- college of laws. different views on the subject and we will get going really quickly. if anybody hasn't heard about net neutrality or what it is i don't think we really need to go into much detail on what it means but basically it's the idea on the internet consumers access content and their applications and their services all be treated equally and how that happens in the legal authority for which has been a tortured conversation at least since 2005. let me just quickly i think the fcc laid out their plan yesterday. chairman wheeler had a boat on his notice a proposal making and i'm going to ask matt to tell us how we got

so, i co-sponsored along with joe courtney and tom latham, bipartisan, the improving access to medicare coverage act which would allow observations days to be counted toward the three day mandatory inpatient stay for medicare coverage of skilled nursing facility services. so here is my question, mr. sean cavanaugh. in number of independent reports from net pack, the hhs inspector general, brown university, very interesting study, indicated that there has been a substantial increase in the number of observation state claims and a decrease in the number of in-patient stays. according to med pac outpatient observations days to buy it 30% from 2006 to get to c-span. a brown university study found the average length of stay and observation increased by more than 20%. can you tell me what is contributing to this trend and a rise in observation states? >> certainly cms is aware of the growth and observations days as well. one of the things, we believe, is contributing to it is the behavior of some hospitals that want to avoid otters reviewing whether and inpatient stay was appropriate. >> you