so we are the ta, the authority awe prove the geary quarter brt in may 2007? >> correct. >> that was over six years ago. how long did it take to build up to that approval vote in may 2007 by the authority? >> predates me just a bit so i need to rack my brain. >> probably a few years? >> few years, yeah. i think -- to complete the -- two years. /stpwhr and >> and when did the ta first get involve in terms of getting this process started for geary brt. >> i think it was with the 2004 /propb k. >> so we're at about nine years now of this process for geary brt building up to the feasibility study, approving that and now six years later? i'm just -- eight, nine, ten -- you know, that's a long time. and we are -- and i say this as -- i'm an intensely strong supporter of geary brt as i am with van ness and i hope many more brts and i don't want to compare us to mexico city from an idea in somebody's head to the -- it took three years, you know. i understand this california, this is the u.s., we love process here and things take a lot longer than they do elsewhere, bu

backing up in terms of what the ta does, obviously the ta is not the implementing agency. i know sometimes with doyle drive where the ta takes a greater roll than it does otherwise, but in terms of subway or tjta, the ta really provides funding, provides a level of oversight to make sure that the ta funding is being spent properly, but is not the agency delivering the project. i guess i have a -- sometimes when we have consulting projects it's a very specific thing -- construction management on [inaudible] island or awarding an outside -- the next one is /tpaoez feasibility study. i guess it makes you raise a little bit of an eyebrow of where this is almost 2 million dollars a year for on call consulting services when the ta is not the implementing agency and we have very talented enengineers. that raises question for me. it's a broader issue we've discussed before about outside consulting services when our capable ta staff... >> we basically have myself and we have bob, who's gonna be presenting shortly and we just hired our senior engineer [inaudible]. so we're a small g

so we'll be working with staff to -- after that to schedule meetings here at the ta. we could have two meetings before the end of this month to make sure we stay on the schedule of deciding an executive director before we go on our recess. we have been working on a very aggressive schedule to identify executive director and i know that's put a lot of pressure on the the personnel committee to act quickly, but i think it's very y deliberate about thought for in making the choice in executive director. with that, if there are no other comments or questions we can go on to public comment. >> the person nel committee is meeting july 12 and then you'll give us instruction at the next july meeting? >> we will be looking at scheduling two board meetings of the transportation authority to be able to discuss, interview candidates here before us. on july 12 we we'll be discussing who will go forward so it's not quite a certainty yet until we have that meeting and we determine which names go forward, but i expect that on the 23rd and 30th of this month that we will have full boar

the ta has designed many things to mitigate the loss of parking. and new approaches to blend the options like the masonic tunnel and the fillmore tunnel but with the leadership that will hopefully revicinity the japan town and fill more district to look at the tunnel and hopefully close the gap that has divided those neighborhoods for 40 or 50 years. i'm aggressively pushing a new deadline with the support of president chiu for the gary b r t not for 20/20 as planned as discussed in the past but to open in 2018. so moving those issues and items forward without dlie is critical for that 94 now a aggressive deadline. so those projects will provide a new spine or backbone to the city with the vanessa and expand the transit and bart. but the bus rapid transit systems as a number of those in administratrix city are an important way to connect up. i appreciate the sharp criticisms that supervisor wiener has brought up to help me and many that so for the the b a r t. so we can complete the virile report and fully develop now a alternatives has so much pro

i'm not trying to dump on the ta stuff 'cause you are some of the most highly competent folks around. it's about the way we do projects in san francisco which is deeply dysfunctional. >> [inaudible] we're all doing this together, whether we're leading [inaudible] we all have to work together on this and the system as a whole needs reform and that's one of the things [inaudible] one of the outcomes [inaudible] is if we can [inaudible] either public or just city staff type symposiums or working sessions just to really focus on this issue and make some mediate reforms both at the small and big scale projects. >> at least with the better market street man, which we've been critical of the lack of interagency coordination and the credible slowness and expense of the projects at least with market street, it's just incredibly more -- it's a radical reenvisioning of what mark market street is. geary brt is not that. it's not a simple design, but we know what brt is. we know -- it is not the same level of complexity and nebulousness as reenvisioning market street is. thank you. >> any other --

. >> actually, i wanted to thank president chiu to help to pull together the mta with the ta and this process with the single team approach is the right one to move projects forward more speedily in addition to a a lot of the other sessions that will come up in the presentation. my understanding of the b r t whatever it's at its sometimes much more simple than the gary boulevard b r t with the tunldz. i know that a lot of the planning into the environmental analysis is much more complex. i think it's my understanding that this funding for the engineering group and the xhauch design is in and out out of the budget it's only being phased in itself a phased approach so it's not an additional amount of money but it's important for the complexity like the project gary boulevard the tunlz that are divided differently. i urge the colleagues to think about this. that is a phased funding system. there's great things going on i'm happy we're discussing that. but i think detailing this would be harmful and we need the environmental report done and the approach that the transportation staff and i

i do want to -- go your comments around the mansel project and want to thank the ta staff, the flee supervisors that represent that very important part of san francisco have been talking about very specific needs in that area and this approach was in response to three offices working with staff to respond to the needs of the public and so i'm very proud of this. i appreciate the work that commissioner avalos and commissioner er owe er did with us on this and i know many districts are looking forward to that work being done asap so we're thankful to the transportation authority for making that happen. >> so this item we can open up for public comment. i have a number of speaker cards and i would like the people to approach the podium as they're called. i'll name off five to seven names and just come forward. you can line up by the television set by the windows and i will call people guard one by one for public comment. edward, christine, michael, vince -- sorry if i don't get your name right -- joel, lawrence lee. please come forward. first speaker please. >> again, we're doing two minutes per p

charles: during the campaign sieve -- and did you ta about that? i don't remember this coming up the you were being targeted. >> no. it came up a lot. lot of misinformation was used as a political weapon. the point here is that if the inspector generas office has evidence to suggest that my records where -- were inappropriate the access and they need to investigate and i am thankful senator grassley is office is investigating and we're hoping to the department of justice will take the right course of action and mine is only one of my cases where political candidates the word donors have their record access to. charles: i you actually hearing from additional people now? >> about their rords? absolutely. in the washington times accommodate it did at least two stories on this with all the facts right. one of those is on our web site if the want more details. there are at least eight other people who have had thr ta records and is used and illegally access by the irs. if somebody is in a position to have aess to confidential records and are abusing that

so yes, the evidence has not gone in very well for the prosecution, but the idea ta this case is over as mark says, that the prosecutioning is dead, i just don't think that's true. >> i respectfully disagree with that. here's why. >> how do you expect them to recover? what are they going to do at this point to recover? who are they ing to put on? >> they don't need to recover. >> they have a burden. they have a burden of proof. understand something. >> recovering many i applies -- >> this is not a fight. this is not a fight. this is, they've got a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. that's how the legal system, would in america which means the defense doesn't have to do anything. defense doesn't have to do a thing. you don't have to cross-examine if you don't want pop how are you going to say the prosecution has proved this case beyond a reasonable doubt? >> the case isn't over yet. the case isn't over yet. >> what are they going to put on? >> what evidence could we possibly be hearing at this point? go back to the law. law will set you free. if you go back to their burden, not

and we put a funding item out with a negative recommendation and we're sending a strong message to the ta and not acceptable to have the projects move along at a snail's pace so i think it's a group effort to look at the agency's processes and all of the public processes and how can we move forward with these projects in a timely matter. >> agreed. >> supervisor kim. >> thank you. i wanted to thank supervisor wiener for the last project and important to look at internal processes and one issue that came up in the ceqa process that we heard from one of the developers and not the appeals but making determinations were prioritized and figuring out internally on the front end the city could do a better job to make sure things move forward and i believe public input is important part of the process but other things that we could do to expedite it would be important and the board wanted to ensure 100% bike and pedestrian safety improvements as well and ways that we can improve the processes. >> yeah, i appreciate that and as i mentioned at least for transportation projects work with the plannin

very strong support i suspect from the board of supervisors and the ta commission and strongly supported by the mayor, by this board, by the planning commission, so i think this will be similarly coming with a lot of broad support from all the key policy makers in the city which should get us all moving quickly. >> thank you. members of the board anything else? any final comment? >> [inaudible] >> michael schwartz. >> good afternoon. >> i am with the sfmta and based on public comment want to make sure people know where we are in the very near term and the final environmental document is available and as director reiskin said it will be certified by the board and we will bring it to this board in september and approval and adoption of the findings. anyone that wants to review the project it's on the project website and you can download all of the chapters and parking and 3.5 that goes into a longer description of parking, anything you would like to see and anyone is welcome to send me an email if you have questions. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you mr. schwartz. director ra