rifkin's report? >> this is an opportunity for members of the public to address the board on only 9 topics that mr. rifkin addressed. we have one member of the public who wishes to speak on one of the item that mr. rifkin discussed. >> anyone else can address the board on the director's report. seeing none, [speaker not understood]. >> all right. mr. chairman, i do not see mr. murphy here, therefore, there is no citizens advisory council report. as you stated earlier, you would like, then, to proceed to item 11 on the regular calendar. >> we will come back to the consent calendar and general public comment after that. okay. >> item 11, authorizing the director to determine the feasibility of central subway project option 4 for the removal of tunnel boring machines. >> garv. >> good afternoon, chairman nolan, director rifkin, central subway program director. before you is our request to pursue two north beach tvm retrieval options resulting from a meeting held on november 19th facilitated by supervisor

rifkin, for the recommendation. and i want to thank the board for this award. i am truly honored and i want to thank mr. harris for the nomination. so, thank you very much. >> thank you. (applause) >> congratulations. and next, moving on to the transit division, we have two teams of employees that we're going to recognize from our maintenance of way section. these are the folks who maintain the entire system aside from the vehicles, everything that the vehicles run and rely on, the buildings, the tracks, all of that. i want to ask mr. haley to come up with mr. young lalague. young is a track maintenance supervisor and terry manages the entire maintenance of way division and is here on behalf of the signal crew. both of these gentlemen have been with the agency for 13 years. and we're really recognizing them for two specific projects, one of which director heinicke is well familiar with, the eureka curve track replacement project which was replacing the track that you heard updates on often at the director's request over the course of the project. very significa

rifkin, our outstanding staff. with that, we stand adjourned. thank you. [adjourned] ing please call the role. >> director bridget. >> brinkman? >> present. >> director heinicke is anticipated. director lee? >> present. >> director nolan? present. rib key present. mr. chairman, directors, you have a quorum. announcement of produce sound producing devices during the meeting please be advised the ringing of cell phones, pagers and other similar sound producing electronic devices are prohibited at the meeting. any person responsible for one going off in the meeting may be asked to leave the room. and please know that cell phones that are put on the vibrate position do cause microphone interference so the board respectfully request they be placed in the off tion position. full approval of the minutes of november 20, 2012 regular meeting. >> motion. >> second. >> all in favor say aye? >> aye. >> so ordered. >> item 5, communications. >> okay. ms. boomer, on this one, members of the board, because there are two issues today there are not going to be a whole lot

chairman, director rifkin, thank you, and members. thank you for the seeking additional opinion and reach a resident opinion. my name is rod [speaker not understood]. i'm not here as a past president of the hill dwellers. i divert from the hill dweller's review on this one. no nor have the project members -- steve has eloquently given you purchase's position. nor as a past commissioner. you're a member of civic design for many years. i am currently a board member at renew sf and that opinion will be given by others. i'm here to support completion of the t-line from bayview to fisherman's wharf. as you say, that's not on your agenda today. that's really what this is all about. we have been working on that since the late 1960s. we have station designs from late 1967 offering the merchants of north beach rapid transit, grade separated service underground. four years ago we cautioned the central subway's engineers to avoid line and station construction that would obviously arouse strong community opposition. i think we put our supervisor

rifkin bet r be willing to pay $100 a month for his fast pass. [speaker not understood] equality for everyone. >> next speaker, please. >> barry toronto followed by mark gruberg. is mr. gruberg here? okay, all right. >> mr. toronto. >>> yes, good afternoon again. i first want to alert you that i saw on facebook somebody shared a link of an article in the new york times about the international association of taxi regulators was working on creating regulations to deal with those apps, [speaker not understood] and side cart. our own chris hiyashi has been instrumental in being involved in helping create those regulations. i think i'm a little disturbed that this information is not getting out to you guys and to us about what you guys are actually doing. i think it's important that this information and what she's actually proposing be included, is actually advertised -- proposed -- advertised so we have an idea what's going on. and that helps us in having confidence that sfmta is doing something, and where this is going to go. and i think that's impo

director rifkin, when we first proposed this, we made very clear, i think as a group to the community, that if they found new funding for this, we were not opposed to this on policy ground. that obviously the idea of providing reduced or even free fares for the truly under privileged children in our community is a noble idea and one that i think we all agree is worthy of pursuing from a policy standpoint. but when we reached that sort of agreement, one of the points was that it be new money. and i think we've heard from some members of the board of supervisors and some members of the community the concern that this money is not really new money earmarked for this. it's discretionary money that we could have spent on something else. and, so, maybe i just say, what is your reaction to that particular, and you know, how do you weigh the benefits of spending this discretionary money on service upgrades or something like that as opposed to this project? >> what i would say is i think that's all correct and those are valid, legitimate points. when we had the discussion here back in the spri

so, i do want to thank director rifkin for that acknowledgment. you'll see, and i think you'll hear today, we have a lot of trust to build between our members and mta. i think the work that's gone on since may will help in that regard. but we really need to keep at it and our office is committed and david is committed to making sure that we do everything we can to both help find an alternative to the existing plan and to make sure that it's effectuate and had becomes a reality. i want to be clear that we -- supervisor chiu has not supported the existing base case and the so-called option 1 and is very much looking forward to consideration of these other two options in particular. as far as the pagoda goes, we think that is a creative approach that accomplishes the mta's original goal and existing goal of removing the tunnel boring machines from the ground that make sense on its face. and we want to do everything we can to support the agency in pursuit of that option. we have vetted some of those conversations and we'll continue to do everything we