however, in that case, the change actually saved the city money. there are other things that -- other examples of that. many of the projects have example that explain what our cost overruns, money being well spent for the system. i do not want folks to leave with the idea that there is a lot of money or time being wasted in these projects. most of the schedule or cost overruns have explanations, and there are good explanations. not all of them do, and that is where the work is to be done. i definitely appreciate the work of the audit, but i want to recognize a lot of what the audit found has explanation. to the extent it does not, there are many good recommendations here that will whiwe will be implementing. on cost and on schedule, one of the recommendations we only partially agree with, using an asset-management approach. if we were a much larger agency with larger pools of assets, we might have the luxury of being able to organize our engineers and product managers, construction managers, planners, into asset-specific groups. the benefit of that is the work bet

the puc. it will not be a city-wide enterprise solution, though it has the potential to be so in the future. because we are implementing these systems and on the to integrate with the other city agencies, that was the impetus behind the suggestion that we need more staffing and in areas of i.t. project management. that is one area where we have pretty much zero staffing. much of the city-wide conversation about consolidation of functions has been around that. we do not need our own e-mail network, administrator. the nuts and bolts should be centralized. the agency-specific projects need leadership in project management to make sure they do now overrun cost and schedule, as i t projects tend to do. that is an area where i know our i.t. staff is short. commissioner campos: another point made in the audit was that with some of the problems, delays, overruns of some projects, because of the way i.t. is structured, the systems you have in place, by the time you know something is a problem, you are talking about that being a few weeks late. is that something that will be addressed? >> part of having a good project control system is to have real- time information on what is hap

while the tourist business has increased this last year in the city, certain pockets of our city have not experienced as much as other pockets of the city. so this is yet another way we can do it. i know north beach has some special needs. we can pay attention to that in the very near future. there are other pockets, but this is part of what i wanted e merchant quarters, hear what they had to say, respond in a positive way and experience and experiment with ideas that innovate with our emergence to try to enhance their ability to make a little bit more, and also help with the cultural scene. this year is the year of the dragon. eat you know anything about the dragon, you know that the dragon is kind of like the big leader of all of the zodiac animals. they are fearless. they have the big dragon breath. you know, the fire breath. they are not fearful of hast things. they want to just flows through some new ideas, and i think that is what we wanted to boldly this year, kind of use the spirit of the dragon to say, cassette and let's do some new ideas. let's be bold about it." let's do something that enhances the cultura

you focus mainly on moscow as far as i understand what about the other cities in russia i think we see more interest in interest in the other cities in russia as well but is right now mainly limited to retail and here we see a lot of interest of all the big russian and international retail changed conquering russia right now really and in hotels i don't see so much interest in offices in the russian regions at this point of time well over the past couple of years we've seen very high rates of growth and terms of real estate prices i mean it has been a good bet so far but there's obviously a ceiling at some point what do you think will be the drivers of the growth in the coming years i think. in. a lot will depend specially in moscow on the political situation we have seen in our report that there's a. very high potential for development and the big question is will there be the chances to execute all this development which depends a lot on the moscow city government and the other is as i said the infrastructure needs russia still has to do a lot and the main question if we don't have e

the u.s. and we will be in that other big california city, los angeles, in a few other days. thursday, and -- thursday and friday. and i was convinced quite easily about the use to have these kind of work shops in l.a. but i thought san francisco, there's so much going on already. we had leah and for almost nine months in amsterdam and chairman david chiu and others for a week. and there is such great organization here and there are so many ideas. there are so many professional little here already about bike infrastructure and the future of biking. but it will come down to implementation and it's perhaps a bit like riding the wiggle. you have to push hard and hopefully we might be a sort of additional support, a sort of small electricity motor for you to push your -- up that hill. and it will come down to implementation and leadership and it's great to have a sort of down to earth approach during these two days. working in teams on i think three important places in town. market, mid market. there's a lot going on. last week we had people from one of the biggest and the greates

afforded by march, the school district, and city college. -- one appointed by bart, the school district, and city college. the mayor submitted four names, and i am one of those. the other members denominate no, the finance department with the city, and the union representative for local 21, which is the union that represents the largest numbers of employees of the agency. what we're now going to have to work through is, in terms of the department's role, all of the actions we need to be involved in in areas that are not one of those three, the redevelopment adrienne -- areas that are not one of those three that will be under the responsibility of the successors. they have no legally binding contracts in place. we will take over the entitlement for those. in many of those areas we are ready to have entitlement. there is some conflict between the planning code and redevelopment code, so we will have to work that through to figure out how that will affect our work and how we move forward with what controls all of those things. there are a lot of unanswered questions at this point. since it is not on your calendar today, it is difficult to have a discussion. if you want us

the city of burly gamingame on monday instituted a note ordinance. i have a copy of the ordinance to pass on as the city day -- city has compared with eight other cities are doing. i would give her the ordnance and acreage hurt to contact people in their planning department to see what has been looked at so that our own work can support what others have researched. that is, i think, it for me today. i wanted to thank the planning department for including the christmas pictures from the party. i thought it was very thoughtful. it brought a lot of smiles to my face. the last thing i would like to share, [inaudible] is closed. they moved the catering business to another location. >> i apologize. i was not here. >> it there are no further commission comments -- commissioner sugaya: i spent my christmas hiatus so i have nothing to say. [laughter] >> thank you. with that, we can move on to director report, announcements. >> thank you. happy new year, everyone. it is good to be back. if you will bear with me, i might lose my voice halfway through. i am still struggling with a cold. i have several announcements today, and i wanted to give you some information

your district has different challenges that some of the other parts of the city do not. they are all attached buildings so if you get a fire, you are likely to have it extend into other dwellings. wood frame construction has a lot to do with it. a lot of the buildings are older, wood frame buildings that have not had the benefit of more modern fire code -- that have been grandfathered in with a protection system. if you look at the last group of greater alarms, we do get a number of fires out in the bayview. recently, there was one out in the richmond. the last bit of time has showed us that everyone is vulnerable. more to the mayor's point in addition to fires that they can be prepared ahead of time. our program is great and the website is great to be able to prepare yourself not just for

look at what is happening in the other cities? are they bringing the kinds of jobs, are their burden to our city, or the adding something that can be done through the economic impact. the living wage ordinance is an important one. living wage ordinance, many of us were around for the beginning. it keeps growing, it keeps being amended, it keeps being better and why cannot be to the formula retail stores? why can it not be included so people will have a living wage? people will have health care, people will have designated vacation and sick time which is all included now in a living wage. that is a possibility. they pass an ordinance like this in chicago. the mayor happened to veto it. i am talking about real possible things. another one possibility, a policy might look at which is closer and dear to my heart is giving incentive for some of these stores to come in. where there is a lack of resources. opportunities for people out there. we want to do both. we want to make sure that as businesses come in, they are respectful of the co

i mean, the other important aspect about this is that the city has a lot of capital needs. we are an older city. we are aware of that. we have seismic concerns. the $331 million in total really moves us forward. you'll see as we go through it, are you if you have read the report, you'll see that we're doing significant and important work. it also has a local economic stimulus effect, which we know is especially important in these economic times. i mean, using some of the estimates that were put together by the office of economic adviser to the controller, it is about 2100 jobs expected just from these issuances. this would be san francisco and jobs, and those would be direct construction and indirect jobs created by those construction jobs. then i would again highlight that we are putting three bonds together. by combining them for one large sale, everyone saves money in the sense that we're reducing it issuance costs, and that is a good thing for us to be able to do. real quickly, this map here provides an overview of where some of the projects are going to be taking place

the cars are in really poor shape. is there any way we can get cars from other city industries? there are a lot different than someone in the water department. we need cars for emergency situations, is that a possibility. is there anything we can do to remedy that? >> if you went back to the pie chart, the services and other agencies, they would not come free. we would be billed for those cars, and taking the other used car, you are buying that with what ever problem the used car had come and gone. commissioner kingsley: thank you for stepping in so quickly and picking up his ball, being here tonight to get our minds focused on the important issue of the the part that's budget. just two questions. we have 293 vehicles, how does that compare to what i believe the number of vehicles there should be in running order for the present staffing? either under that or any other type of measurement. >> i don't know that we have done a study, there are a lot of variables that have to be factored in. one of the issues would be the condition of the car. if it is going to go down and needs ser

they praised the city's public transportation system. the other cities in the top five vancouver, new york city and denver. in the studios is gary wolf is director executive director stopwaste dost org and we were talking about recycling and why it's so important, why is it so important? >> there is traditional benefits that reduceses greenhouse gases and preserves natural preservesl resources because secondary materials use a lot of those resources but also it's a green job program. processing and baling and shipping and that sort of thing. about 200 direct jobs, 200,000 tons are processed. >> where do people go to find these jobs? >> we have to get the materials out of the garbage can and into the right containers. we throw about hundred million dollars per year of recyclable material in alameda county. if we capture all of that. we're talking about 800 jobs through different franchise provider in alameda county could hire people to do. >> cheryl: san francisco did well on the ratings. how about the area? >> the bay area is a great place for sus

part of the mobility change and access to the railway station, taking the train to what ever destination city, continue on the other side. directness, we mean it detours faster with a constant speed. there is nothing slowing down or speeding up again. and with a minimum of delays. what makes a bike route attractive, it is a psychological element. it is different for every person. we know that people like to cycle along the waterways or railways. but not along the motorways. and they like a scenic route more than an infrastructure area. it needs to be wide enough to cycle a side-by-side. it is a social events. what we say in the netherlands, car drivers are all the time aware of cyclists. and when there are too many trucks, a high traffic volume, then we should worry. it is for you to decide what you want, if you want to introduce a cycling, maybe it is better to start with separation and to get the cars used to of the cyclists. they can go in the streets and let them deal with us. avoid hard conflicts, make a safe infrastructure, but take care that the vehicles are safe with l breaks, and make sure that the cyclist

what the other city by the bay is serving up and why the "new york times" is taking notice. >>> that'sfor eyewitness news at 5:30. we'll see you back here in half an hour, and then of course at 10:00 and 11:00. have a great night.

the part of the city to deal. speculatively, that is helpful. >> thank you. there were two other attachments said you see them as part of your total deliberations. the fee was the same breakdown in the sioux were built. very flat operating costs. the $13 million that we spend for chemicals. part of the public comment for capital projects. this is just the first step in taking into consideration the costs and the additional impacts. so, that includes the question and answer follow up. we will do the same for whatever questions you had today for hetch hetchy water bureau. >> one question i had at the last meeting was the facilities renewal program. i was able, and staff helped me to look at some of the facilities that were subject to that plan, and i concluded from that that first of all, there is not, in the current version of that plan, anything that could be construed as gold plating. i think that there is a real range of need. that there are some facilities that are most notably in pretty bad shape. the same facilities had three very new buildings that improved shop conditions