mr. benson? >> through the chair, brad benson, special projects manager for the port of san francisco. supervisor campos, to your question, the port, working through the department of public works had bid a contract, a professional services contract for ceqa review for the pier 27 cruise terminal project last fall and e.s.a., environmental science associates, was selected as most qualified respondent for that waterfront oriented work and the idea here is to add the america's cup scope of analysis to that underlying cruise terminal e.i.r. during that bid process, h.r.c., the human rights commission had established an l.b.e. participation goal for the professional services contract of 15%. e.s.a. came in just slightly above 30% and the port's intention to exceed h.r.c. goals and contractor has indicated their willingness to meet their prior bid for l.b.e., so that would be 30% or more of the contract amount. supervisor campos: thank you, and thank you and the rest of the port staff for your efforts and it's great to see that. i hope to see more of that as contracts come before us. presid

mr. benson, thank you for being here. it really has to be, for extraordinary reasons, we elect to waive against the process of competitive bidding for of this contract. i would like you to expound just a little bit more. i think that the pursuit of us making sure we have our ducks lined up on ceqa is companion to the notion that the city and this event has to be in full ceqa compliance. there can be no mess up in timeline. there can be no mess up in teaching the process so the net effect is san francisco and america's cup is in full compliance. it is a big role of the dice, one that i co-sponsored and am willing to make happen, but i want to hear more about the fact that we're not just gambling on this idea that san francisco along the way, because we sold- sourced, somehow we decide we have to cut corners. i want to hear more on that. >> sure. i think that our recommendation to the committee -- and i thank you for your cosponsor ship on this ordinance -- is that getting the city ceqa and permiting team on board now, we w