in terms of building the mta's about the credit, the impact of issuing a city cop compared to the mta, a relatively small number at the same time and preserving them on the general fund side is something that compels me to support this. i just want to thank the department for bringing this item forward and cleaning it up. the budget analyst report did indicate there was some amendments. i would like to make a motion for that. the amendment is already reflected -- the changes are reflected in the budget analyst report. they are pretty standard items. it lowers the principal amount to $160 million. we would again lower that further based on the budget analysts recommendation, to $80 million. additional items would be to make sure the maximum maturity and any new bond money is 30 years. that is pretty typical. we also indicate the parameter we want for refunding of bonds is a 3% savings calculated on present about the basis. that is pretty standard for our debt issuance. it also proves to form the official statement subject to final approval by the mta board and all other changes or modi

that is what we have at the mta. they have 10 dozen workers under their umbrella and what is being -- 10,000 workers under their umbrella and what is being proposed is to have 5000 of us, the cab drivers, pay $15 million or $20 million every year to get money from the cab industry to pay for the benefits and the paychecks of the other people under the mta's umbrella. it is completely unacceptable. i wish i had more time. there are a lot of people who are afraid of this man and you cannot go to a meeting where you do not hear, we cannot do that. malcolm heinicke will do this or that. supervisor kim: thank you. >> good afternoon. i am a cabdriver and medallion holder and soon i will have my 23rd anniversary as a professional behind the wheel in san francisco. malcolm heinicke is an architect who is [unintelligible] and its functioning. his presence on the board has left a very bad relationship between the cab drivers and the city. a protest his reappointment. it is a conflict of interest for the mta to pursue policies t

before it was taken over and hijacked by the mta. at the present time, a taxi drivers in the city are being squeezed to pay for mta's problems. the pension liabilities, the ability not to pay their own bills, the ability not to pay their own checks. parking meters are going out in the neighborhoods where they never were in order to pay for their bills. they are squeezing the taxi commission which is how the taxi drivers, by doubling and tripling their fees are -- almost on an annual basis. it has got to stop. i think what this board can do is take the taxi commission back out of the mta and and independent body and unravel the feud between gavin newsom and mr. peskin and honorable the politics that caused that. as the man said earlier, note taxi driver in the city and county, unlike you sitting on this board, has pension, medical, grievance, has dental, day off with pay, zero, and you had better start looking at that. thank you for your time. president chiu: public comment is an opportunity to address the board on the items of interes

the board. we have ed reiskin and director of mta. >> good morning. happy to be here today to begin implementation of something that the voters saw as a need when they passed proposition a back in 2007. i have a brief presentation, but i am sure we will have plenty of questions. also here is nadia from office of public finance, mark lake, as well of are soas our public fine department. i will walk through a brief presentation, and i look forward to the discussion. if we could go to the oslides. one of the things i think everyone knows, particularly those who ride the transportation system is we have a significant amount of assets and need. we estimated the 20-year need to bring all of our assets into a state of good repair to beat on round the order of $10 billion. when i am talking about assets, but these are the buses, trains, reels come overhead wire and stations. the parking meters, signs, traffic signals. it is a pretty broad and almost daunting array of assets that we have that have a pretty significant price tag that have not been invested in th

do not let this be a cash cow for the mta. thank you. president chiu: thank you, next speaker. >> i am a cab driver. i would take this opportunity to express the anger and fear of thousands of cab drivers who cannot express or speak well. it continues fear, the threat from the mta about those 500 medallions which they are supposed to get and are entitled to get an going to the cab companies, as long as safety, two of my known drivers, my friends, they have died while they were on duty. they do not have any health insurance. thousands do not have any health insurance or protection. they do not have retirement. i believe every single medallion issued should go to the cab drivers and they are entitled to have them. other than that, they do not have any retirement plan. they rely on them, their situation of psychology because the situation is pretty bad. the fear every day is the threat is on their neck every day. thank you very much. president chiu: thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon. i am a disabled combat veteran. i am proud i defe

those things are not under the mta. we are completely separate body. >> thank you for that. >> i do not think i would have a problem accepting jurisdiction and hearing the merits of the case. much like the analogy -- i guess the reason was not justified -- we could hear from both sides. i think mta has given us some justification for why they have this policy. it does not seem like what we are doing -- but they are doing is nefarious. they have just not gone to the motions of having the commission adopt as policy. it seems like it is happening in the future, in june. i would support continuing this to keep the process moving. so that mta does adopt a policy that says we will have a moratorium or new regulations. >> i do not believe we have jurisdiction over this matter. if mta is going to adopt policies in june, i am sure we will see this case again. if it is not acceptable to the applicant, whatever policy they adopt, i did their permits is denied, -- and if there permanent is denied, i sympathize with the ability to go

the mta has reaped $12 million a year from the taxi industry. none of this money has gone back into the industry to protect the lives and livelihoods of these workers. there is a coalition of drivers working together, some of whom you have heard here to bring forth the ballot measure to change the terms and i encourage you to engage and support the workers through this difficult process. most of you are concerned with the service provided by the industry. i urge you to consider the blood, sweat, and tears of the men and women who provide this important service. thank you. president chiu: thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am from the library users association. the stench from the library grows ever stronger and it becomes more and more of an effort for the city's administration to ignore it. i hope you, supervisors, do not join in pretending nothing is happening. i wish you could see all the many letters sent supporting the preservation and renovation of the burdo heights branch library. i received a copy of the one to yo

the mta staff, and the public. also has great dedication to all forms of transportation in this city which he has shown by truly living as a muni writer. -- rider.

the second piece i would like to highlight today is the fact that we have at the mta, the metropolitan transportation agency, a number of items, one of which is a decision on whether or not to provide free public transit to certain children in san francisco. this is a decision the mta board will be making shortly. there are a number of us who have been working on this issue for many months, close to one year now. i would like to thank my colleagues to have supported this effort. many of you have spoken at the board of directors -- supervisor camera, supervisor avalos, supervisor mar and supervisor olague as well. we feel there should be a decision to provide public transit for all children. at a minimum, what's likely to come out of the mta board of directors is a decision to provide free public transit for low-income youth. whether we get one or the other, we are very proud of how far we have come on this issue. we have a very historic decision on the part of the mta board of directors to make public transit more accessible to children and this is happening as the san francisco unifie

in papers filed as recently, the mta cited a resolution 10-029. it deals with the medallion pilot program. that is what they were doing for the last three years. by the way, anything you have been doing up to this point, february of 2010, you are absolved. it is ok with us. it did not say, you could go on into the future and have regulations that are not written. to the contrary, the enabling legislation of the mta regulation of the taxi business says that once adopted, agency regulations will supersede prior law, if they conflict with the prior lot. -- law. you cannot have a regulation without a hearing. what is the regulation they rely on for denying mr. aryan his permit? >> [inaudible] >> some day, we may have a hearing of which we will decide whether or not we will decide to limit permits. imagine if you went down to the building inspection department and said i want a permit to remodel my kitchen. and they said, we will not issue those. that is the box they put him in. they have not made a decision and they have not held a hearing. you have a

by the way, let's recognize the mta graphic designer who created the logo. [applause] which, of course, features the historic street car number one, the first car to be operated when muni was launched december 20, 1912. recently restored, this hundred- year-old trends or course sits right outside here, and we will be taking rides on that later on. soon to be as famous as thomas the train and the little train that could. so, streetcar no. 1 will be ready for boarding later on. our next speaker this morning is supervisor david chiu, who was elected to represent district 3 in 2008 and two months later, elected president of the board of supervisors. his district is -- well, filled with the musty places in san francisco. north beach, fisherman's wharf, chinatown. he is an avid transportation supporter and a member of the chu -- muni centennial of honorary committee. ladies and gentlemen, david chiu. [applause] supervisor chiu: good morning. what a beautiful symbol of our centennial, although after the story, i was hoping there was a little marijuana leaf some wer

the fund also went to two other mta projects. we have gone to the transportation authority board to approve the reprogramming. we have also met the deadline to request the construction authorization of the cesar chavez project. this resolution is the last up in finalizing the transfer of funds. it is required for all projects that received the block grant. i can answer any questions about the resolution that he might have. supervisor mar: are there any questions, colleagues? supervisor cohen? no questions. thank you for the great work on this. let's open this up for public comment. there is no one from the public here. i will close public comment. colleagues, can we move this forward without objection? without objection, thank you. is there any other business before us? thank you, everyone. meeting adjourned. >> when stephen de staebler died, he was working on one of the biggest shows of his career, matter and spirit. it is a retrospective look at the many faces and faces of the life of an innovative artist from the california cla

for the city and county, something that requires the agency worked very closely with the mta. we are also the body that oversees the transportation sales tax for the city and county of san francisco, and i am very proud we have a very strong working relationship with the mta. i want to work knowledge our new director of transportation, ed reiskin, who has hit the ground running and really brought in a new wins. the fact is that for so many of us, muni is what makes it possible for us to live in the city, allows us to get to and from work, allows our kids to get to and from school. even though there are some issues that people have with the system, i think we should be very proud of it. one of the things i want to thank the mayor about is that in the last few months, we have been focusing on the issue of how we make muni and public transit more accessible to families and children in san francisco. we have a responsibility to make sure that not only would protect the infrastructure of the system, but we also focus on creating the future generation of riders. that is why i am prou

for this item we have ed rieskin with the npa -- and -- mta. >> good afternoon. i fully support full general fund support for the department of public works and for the city's capital budget. let the record reflect. supervisor chu: thank you. >> i am going to walk you through a bit of context and where we are in the operating budget and a little bit on the capital budget. both of which will be first considered for approval by the mta board next tuesday, april 3. just to provide context -- supervisor chu: the reason we scheduled this one earlier was the mta board is about to also vote on the final budget they will be submitting to the board and as you know, we did not see the budget last year because mta is truly on a two-year budget and that is why we did not see it. this year we will see it and pass it to your budget. unless there is specific big changes or criteria met will not see the mta budget again. it is a good opportunity to provide feedback. in addition as you know, we are not able to change line items in the budget when it comes to us. we follow the enti

i have more confidence to it in 2012 for the first time in a long time that our mta leadership is poised to improve our muni railway and make it were the of the next century. we could take time to applaud the men and women who every day are working to make the mta better. [applause] but i will tell you, we all know that you cannot do it alone, and we all will have to make tough choices. we all will have to make real improvements that help to improve the public confidence in our system. we know we are going to have to use technology and other things to make our experience is better, but i want you to know that from the board of supervisors, we will -- we will continue to make sure that our muni system will remain, hopefully one of the best if not the best, transportation system in the country not just for the last hundred years, but for the next. thank you very much. [applause] >> supervisor david campos, who was elected the district 9 seat. he also has extensive experience in the transportation arena. he once drove to los angeles on highway one in two hours and 46 minutes. he is the chai

mta. seven light rail lines. thetoric f line streetcars, of course. 700,000 daily borders of our mta -- daily boarders of our mta. of course, senator, as you so well articulated just moments ago, no mayor can ever escape a comment on a daily basis about somebody's quality of ride in the city. because it is so much part of our daily lives, but it is also a reflection early generations of innovation. because we go back many, many years ago when the system was created, and, you know, you cannot avoid acknowledgment of history. they used mining technology to create the first cable cars in our system, and today, they have become the iconic representation of our muni system, that was innovation 100 years ago. and to understand that the mayor in 1912 drove the very streetcar we are about to ride in in 1912 , to yet again represent innovation. we will have not only our ride, but we will also have on board the newest generation of innovators, these technology companies here today that locating themselves on our markets st. ri

often, but we were about to repave the road, we would come to the mta. are there any improvements in your queue? and do with less disruption and less cost than doing them separately. the answer that came back, we have those needs, but we do not have the funding. we would otherwise, were the sons not we prioritize, to expand this pilot, we would use these funds for that purpose. that is the sum of the $6.6 million. i know i have read some comments to the extent that this proposal is creating a false choices. i would respectfully disagree with that. i have endeavored in very good faith to present what i believed our real options that the board can consider and that our real policy decisions. there are trade-offs. once we expand beyond the $5 million that the advocates, to their great credit, have identified as being available from the empty seats, and -- mtc, to go beyond that, there are budget impacts. we could disagree over whether these are the right trade-offs to make. these are the most responsible. the most responsible ones. i do not know -- to what e

the mta has done nothing to improve our dismal working conditions. the cab driver's job is as stressful as any in the united states. the danger of a salt to cabdrivers is greater than two police officers. researchers have done medical surveys of cabdrivers year. they were startled by the high incidence of diabetes and pre- diabetic conditions, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and gastrointestinal problems, likely officers. the mta has made this wars. they took away drivers prospects for medallions. so now we are also feeling angry, discouraged, we have no future, we are threatened. with loss. so let me point out the contradiction. i will go faster. point out the contradiction. our job is to greet passengers currently -- courteously and deliver them safely to their destination. it is a contradiction that you can drive a street car through, but we do our job and because we are professionals and despite the disgraceful m.t.a., which has been distracted for more than two years by taxing the dalliance. they need to remember that they are part o

you also need to know the little story behind this. how well our mta has been working with all the elements of the community. there's a little story here that i fit a lot of attention to, simply because my background is an attorney representing low- income tenants in chinatown. living above this building -- some eight small businesses that used to be in the front. while they're physically gone here, what does not go unnoticed is the way in which there was a solid communication with those businesses, those business owners, the employees, those 19 households to get them to understand and agree that they had to temporarily relocate themselves. they have done that. they have done that without lawsuits, without protest, because we've taken care of their needs. i need to thank mta for this. we've had other projects in our city's history where the relationship with the impacted community was not as smooth. this is really to the credit of the whole mta family, working in concert with our community- based agencies, all these wonderful agencies that came togethe

approve this budget, to make sure that you do right by this system can do right by the ridership of the mta. i do hope that you are able to address issues that remain issues. one of the issues that i think needs to be a focus is the issue of -- we have an audit that is ongoing right now looking at whether or not every one of those dollars that is being spent, $63 million, is truly connected to transportation. let me identify one area where i think you can do something today. that is something you have for a lot about. $9 million of muni budget, money that the writers of this system are putting into. $9 million of that is going to pay for the entirety of the motorcycle unit. i believe the motorcycle unit plays a very important role. i believe there should be properly funded. i do not think it is fair for the ridership of public transit to pay for the entirety of that program. i think it is appropriate for some of that money to be paid by other people who drive other people in the city. you have the opportunity to reduce that amount by half. that is $4.5 million. so that you address issues li