>> good morning, welcome to the wednesday september 5th meeting. my name is jane and i serve as the chair of this committee. i'm joined by our vice-chair peskin and brown. i want to acknowledge the staff on her first g.a.o. committee meeting. welcome. i want to recognize the staff at sf gov tv. lawrence bryant and tom loftis for insuring our meetings are available to the public and online. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: make sure to silence your cellphones. completed speaker cards and documents to be inclused should be pub committe. items will be on the september 18th board of supervisor agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you. would you please call item number 1. >> clerk: a resolution receiving and approving the annual report for the tourism improvement district and mosconia expansion district for fiscal year 2015 and 2016. >> i want to recognize our regular with the department of economic and workforce development. also, i believe lynn is also here. the executive district or of the expansion district towards improvement district. >> chris, office of workforce development. we're here for the fiscal year 2016-2017 annual report for the tourism improvement district and mosconian expansion district. the program is governed by two sets of laws. the state law, which is referred to as the 1994 act and local law article 15 of the business and tax regulations code. this resolution covers the annual reports for fiscal year 2016-2017 for the t.i. d. and m. e.d. they ensure all c.b.d.s are meeting their management plan. they conduct a review of the report and c.p.a. review and provide the board of supervisors with a summary memo. unlike many of the c.b.d.s are city wide business space zones so you have two different zones. first is zone one which is along the downtown corridor. there's zone 2, which is the rest of the city, for a lack of better terms. both are business based. the assessment budget of the t.i.d. is $27 million. the assessment for the m. e.d. is $19 million. t.i. d. was formed in january 1st, 2009 and m.e.d. february 5th, 2013 and the one that is closest to sunsetting is the t.i.d. in 2023. for the t.i.d., they review three bench marks. the first checking the variance between the management plan budget and the fiscal year budget by service category. benchmark two, the budget amount and extensions within a fiscal year and benchmark 3, whether there's carry over funds and how they will be spent forward in the coming fiscal years. for the t.i.d. and m.e.d., the executive producer and marketing and promotion, service and improvement to the convention center and addmin cost and they exclude the expansion of the convention center, development construction and financing. the convention center incentive fund. the center sales and marketing fund and a future capital improvement and renovations fund. for t.i.d., we have the comparative of previous years. they did meet this benchmark requirement for benchmark one. the expansion district met variance between the budget requirement. for benchmark two, comparing the variance of budget to actual spent, the t.i. d. about meet this benchmark and did carry forward and their management plan and financial review. thus meeting this requirement as did the moscone expansion district. in our findings recommendations is the t.i.d. and m. e.d. were successful. they do have organizations issues. we alerted them to the issues. broken links specifically. the website is out-of-date. and oewd reviews this website to ensure the corrections are being made. additionally, there may be some brown act violations by this organization during the course of website review. we discovered the last posted meeting agenda is dated october 30th, 2017. failure to post an agenda on their website is also a violation of the brown act. we recommended t.i.d. post all previously agenda and meeting notes to their website and that they post them in advance of meet this is accordance with the brown act and oewd held a training last week for all executive directours on the brown act and public records request laws. if there are no questions for staff, i'd be happy to bring up -- >> i have one question, madam chair. >> supervisor peskin. >> thank you. with regard to the t.i.d.'s actual income over extensions for the year-ending june 2017, wherein, there's a net income deficit of $1.8 million made up by a surplus in m.e.d. can you speak to that? >> what slide are you looking at, supervisor? >> i am looking at the report on page -- it doesn't have a page number. there are no page numbers on here. but it's the financials on the page after the t.i.d.-m.e.d. collection methodology page. >> i don't have report in front of me. i would be happy to go back to my office and get back to you on that. >> or maybe m.e.d. can speak to that? >> supervisors, the tourism improvement district management corporation. i don't have the slide in front of me. i do have to say the t.i.d. and m.e.d. act separately. i do know if there's a deficit in the t.i.d. it can't be made up by the m.e.d. money. because they are separate. potentially, the deficit in t.i.d. could be due to lower collections during '16 and '17 because of the moscone expansion district. >> so the 1.18 came out of reserves? >> i don't have the report in front of me so i'm happy to tack a look at that with chris after this and get back to you on that. >> and the way the budget and balance sheet are presented, it has a column for t.i.d., a column for m.e.d. and a total column, which is what led me to believe that your cross-collateralizing the two but it sounds like that's not happening? >> that is not happening. >> i would like to point out, the financials were reviewed by the city auditor as well. >> chris, if you can get back to me on that. >> actually, before you go, i had a quick question. just because i don't know the answer to this. in terms of the brown act violation, are there any other follow-up or is there -- what is the penalty for not following the brown act? >> the two penalties that could follow forward for a violation are one, an individual can sue the organization and demand compliance with the brown act and get attorney fees covered as well. a district attorney, in serious cases, could bring a case. >> got it. >> but those are the two remedies. >> thank you. >> we have a corrected our brown act. we are much more on top of it moving forward. >> i appreciate that. >> i wasn't sure if there was an automatic penalty or something that is point-driven. >> yeah, got it. >> so i'm just going to give you a quick update on some of the programs and services those san francisco travel have been doing, as the t.i.d. money and the moscone expansion district. tourism improvement district, most of it goes to san francisco travel for sales and marketing efforts. so our sales missions, we've reached over 220 meeting planners that year in washington d.c., chicago, and we've had 50 trade shows and we run the visitor information center located at holiday plaza and we service over 400,000 vis terse a year per there. we had about $1.3 billion in direct spending from visitors. we partner with s.f.o. on new air service. we've hosted 900 travel professionals, most of these are media professionals that then write stories on san francisco and as you see in the next bullet point, has $5.8 billion media impressions which equate to more than $375 million in value by hosting those journalists. san francisco travel.com continues to increase year over year with 6.3 million visitors and a direct spend of $216 million. again, we are very active on social media facebook, twitter and instagram and all of those followers and impressions go up year after year. also, in '16 and '17 we booked 1.5 million convention room nights for the city of san francisco. the process con yan expansion is to do the $551 million fully-funded expansion and renovation of months coney center and this is a public-private partnership we've worked with the mayor's office and controllers' office to finance this and with the department of public works to execute it. the construction started in the fall of '14 and it should be done bit end of this year. it was a four-phased construction to allow the link to remain open and operational over the past four years. there is continued communication with convention clients that are booked through these convention years. we are operating a fully functioning convention center while doing major construction on the other side of the building. we did complete phase 1 and phase 2. we started phase 3 of construction in april of '17. we also finished our howard street excavation. we have on going community outreach. we do biweekly meetings with a group of constituents around the center and on going client mitigation work around to keep clients happy and in the center. in addition they have an incentive fund to book and we've spent over two million dollars in this '16 and '17 and retain opportunity. that is the end of my presentation. i'm happy to answer questions. >> it might be a question, i'm sure i will hear about soon. >> all right. at this time we will open up for public comment on this item. i'm seeing no public comment. public comment is now closed. colleagues, can we take a motion to move this forward with recommendations to the full board? >> yes, assuming that i'll do that on the $1.18 million deficit in the previous fiscal year? are you sure about that? >> yeah. i mean we can send it out recommendation. either way is fine. >> why don't we forward it without recommendation to the full board pending the information getting to supervisor peskin and to the rest of the committee as well. thank you so much. so the motion is to move item 1 forward without recommendation to the full board. and we can see that without objection. >> clerk: a resolution for the mayor to sign petitions for the affirm a tive -- that iaffirmat, is not it. it is, excuse me. it is regarding the press for the proposed soma west communi community. >> thank you, very much, they are presenting on this item that before he does, i just wanted to thank mr. corgis, as well as many members to speak at public comment. this process has, well w. the specific process has been a little over the last year and it's really come out of eight years of my time on the board of supervisors. the south of the market in south market west has been a community that has long asked for more attention and additional services and i think certainly based on the data we have seen around street cleanliness and crime this is definitely an area that needs additional support. being surrounded by several c.b.d.s with central market, tenderloin they have seen attention other neighborhoods have gotten by forming a community benefit district and over several years, we decided to move forward with a process through which we can create a community benefit district and this neighborhood as well. to meet the additional needs of the community whether it is additional street cleaners that are just address some of the streets and the alley ways to additional public safety and security enhancements. we have had many community meetingings over the last couple of years that i did want to recognize james, who, you know, has volunteered to take up the time in doing a lot of the outreach and meeting facilitations and i also see our former director of the rec center who is also here today and has worked in the community for over 30 years as rec and park manager. and works on the benefit district as well. it really takes a whole village to move forward and there's a lot of outreach that needs to take place. i want to recognize all the parties involved and while ivy lee is no longer with our office, i want to recognize her because she staffed this issue. chris, i appreciate you taking the time. you have managed a lot of community benefit districts so thank you for making some time to create this one and our district as well. >> thank you, supervisors. chris corgis, still with oewd. i'd like to thank supervisor kim and her office for her incredible assistance on this proposed community benefit district and the amendments due to assessment formula changes to this potential district that resulted in lower assessment amounts for city parcels. this particular resolution will allow the mayor to cast on behalf of the c.b.d. that will help the c.b.d. reach the 30% threshold necessary to hold a special election. this proposed district covers 100 whole or partial blocks and has 27 parcels in it. the district budget is $3.8 million and the plurality is covered by public parcels owned by san francisco unified, the city and county of san francisco or the state of california and other public agencies. it comes out to over 11% of the budget coming from public agencies. this means that the 30% threshold that is required to reach the special election, actually the facto becomes 41% as they cannot typically pursue that 11% from public agencies. the 30% threshold is over $1.1 million, which is well over the assessment budget of many of our c.b.d.s. based off our current process, our current knowledge of the process, the district currently has 22% of the weighted assessments in support of the going forward with a special election. if the committee moves this item forward, this would put the committee right, the steering committee for the organization in good graces to meet that 30% threshold, hopefully by the end of the month. are there any questions for staff? >> seeing no questions from staff members, at this time, we will open up for public comment on this item. >> my name is james, i'm the chairman of the soma west cbd and my steering committee has been volunteering their time to bring this forward many of it is a large area. that is the western part of the soma and we really didn't want to forget anyone. i really appreciate jane kim's efforts, as well as the city. we've been working for a long time -- i've lived in the neighborhood since 2002 and many people i've spoken to are just pleading for something to happen to help out our neighborhood. this particular area, as chris had mentioned, we've been working very hard for the past year and we know have over $800,000 in our petitions already signed to get to that $1.1 million. that is actually larger than nine of the c.b.d.'s entire budget here in san francisco. i applaud where we're currently at. we're continuing forward. in fact, we have got another mailer that will go out to all the property owners again to readdress the situation and move us forward. i really appreciate the efforts. i definitely support this to help move us forward. there are, you know, a lot of freeways and city and even federal properties that we just can't deal with. but we are moving forward and i'm very excited when i hear people in the neighborhood and what they're really looking forward to. i do appreciate your time. thank you, very much. >> next. thank you so much. i did not recognize debra benedict who has been involved in this neighborhood and also in the c.b.d. >> thank you, very much, supervisor kim. and members of the rules committee. i wanted to say thank you, especially to supervisor kim, who has put in a lot of effort as well. thank you for bringing this forward. i've been living in the neighborhood since 2004, and i have been participating in groups such as western soma voice as well as the police meetings monthly, et cetera. i actually saw supervisor kim briefly in passing at the howard foalsome street scape that occurred through the municipal transportation authority. i wanted to say thank you to chris koralis, for all the help he has given. as a result, we have worked very, very hard, as you are probably a little bit aware. some of the people from the city have been there regularly. and we really are in support of this because we see that the needs of the community are not being met appropriately, as a result of -- i guess it's district envy. we see how c.b.d.s operate in other areas around us and we see the benefits that they give to the community. we would like those benefits too. with your help, we will be able to move this forward and get the support of the city for the seemingly large portion of properties that are under the city and county federal. thank you so much. >> my name is brendan tobin. i've been helping with coordinating a lot of the efforts in collecting petitions and doing public outreach, through mail, e-mail and other avs. i just wanted to reiterate, when drawing the boundaries, we very intentionally chose to encompass the area on both sides of the freeway, including the hall of justice and many of the other city buildings. we wanted to properly address all of those areas on the margins where problems accumulate and things like that. one interesting issue is the "san francisco chronicle" building has been left out of the c.b.d.s around it because of difficulties collecting its petition. so we chose to encompass the properties and the fre freewaysd these areas. even though it would be difficult to collect those petitions. having the city sign-i sign in f the buildings would be helpful to look after the entire area of the district and not have to make compromises in the boundaries. thank you. >> my name is tim. i was the coordinator to the rec center on sixth and folsom. i'm retired and i don't live at soma. it's been really important for me to help with this committee to better soma. soma is like a second neighborhood to me. with all the stuff that goes around there, the c.b.d. would help the neighborhood a lot. i've also helped with being the liaison to gain support and most have supported the c.b.d. and we've also manned tables at the folsom sunday streets and filipino heritages undiscovered. so we've got a lot of support from this so with your help, it would be great to get this thing passed and i want to thank everybody and of course supervisor kim for your support for all of this. so thank you, very much. >> thank you so much. >> thank you supervisors. thank you, chris. i've been helping with the steering committee also. i wanted to add that part of our vision for c.b.d. is to maintain in perpetuity some of the large investments the city is making, such as the folsom street scaping. i also wanted to say that the city participating in the petition here would not guarantee c.b.d. it would still be on the landowners to push us across the threshold. it would allow us to go to some of those landowners who are on the fence due to their own structural reasons. many of the large parcels are not sold but in contract leading to a misunderstanding of who should sign and how the c.b.d. will have individual transactions. in many cases we've talked to the developers who are in contract of purchase. they say we love it. we're long-time holders. we believe in the value. but we can't sign it because we don't own it. the long-time owners are scared to mess up with their contract. this would allow us to go to them and say hey, you can now push us over the line. it would be a great help. thank you. >> are there any members that would like to speak on this item? please come up. >> my name is antonio. i wanted to say that this is an area that would increase influence on the growing media community in san francisco. i think that los angeles is downtown arts district is a great example on what that can be if this resolution is passed. again, we need an area that can serve as a base for a growing media industry in san francisco today. and i think something that would be a relatively honest attempt at doing that. thank you. >> thank you so much. any other members of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none. public comment is now closed. i, again, i want to thank all of the members of this steering committee for working so hard to a.a, come up with the concept tt the c.b.d. would look like, numerous hours volunteered to the neighborhood. also, spending time on the outreach and making sure our neighborhood and property owners understand what the c.b.d. is and what the benefits of this process would be. again, i just want to recognize james spinelo and tim, debra benedict, alex, erik lopez, brenda tobin and ryan jackson along with ivy lee and chris corgis for bringing this all together. i'm very excited that we are reaching the point that we can make this into a reality. and having seen what other cbds have done whether it's providing additional nighttime security, alleyway street cleaning and greening and beautification, i've seen the difference that c.b.d.s can make and it also a louse us to truly take ownership of our neighborhood and invest in it ourselves and the c.b.d. includes the part of the neighborhood i live in as well. i personally am very excited about seeing this move forward and as pointed out, in public comment, this petition doesn't guarantee the passages of c.b.d. but it certainly shows the city's support for it. [ please stand by ] so, colleagues, if you would'nt mind passing those motions. motion to amend. we can do that first. [gavel] and then i'd like to make a motion to move this item forward as amended with positive recommendation to the full board. and we can do that without objection. [gavel] thank you so much and thank you to all of our community leaders for your work. mr. clerk, can you please call item number three. >> resolution authorizing the office of the assessor-recorder to apply for a county assessor's grant program for the california state department of finance in the amount of $2250,000 from the period of july 1, 2018 through june 30, 2021. >> thank you. and they are here to discuss the item here with us. i ask that we're being asked to table this item as the office is no longer applying for the grant. but we did want to give you an opportunity to speak to the committee. >> thank you, chair kim. i appreciate that. simone jacques with the office of the assessor-recorder. the department submitted the resolution along with our budget in may prior to the grant guidelines being released by the department of finance and since reassessing our priorities, have determined that now's not the time to apply for the grant and have decided to request that the item be tabled at committee. >> subject to public comment. i will make that motion. >> thank you so much. and at this time, we'll open up for public comments on item number three. seeing none, public comment is now closed. >> i move to table item number three. >> supervisor peskin has made a motions to table this item and we can do that without objection. mr. clerk, can you please call item number four. >> dading item number four is a resolution approving certification of the memorandum of understanding between the california automated consortium eligibility system and welfare client data system consortium for the city and county for the provision of procurement and implementation of shared services which would facilitate the move toward a single statewide-automated welfare system. >> and thank you. i want to recognize danielle caplan for the human services agency for presenting on this item. this is actually quite interesting for me and i have a couple of questions about the history of how we develop so many different systems for our -- for how the state administers welfare. so i'd love to hear about that in your presentation as well. >> sure. so, i'm dan caplan, deputy director of human services agency for finance and administration. we are bringing to the board a resolution with the m.o.u. for the california awed ud -- automated consortium system known as cal-aces. the m.o.u. is part of a five-year process that we are going through now between 2018 and 2023. to develop a single automated welfare system in the state of california. at the present time, we have three systems. we have the 18-county calwin system, which san francisco participates in. there is a 39-county system as the c-4 system and los angeles county has a system refered to as the liter replacement system. c-4 and los angeles have come together to form the cal aces consortium which is a joint powers authority. next year, the counties will come together to form a 58-county calsaws joint powers authority. calsaws is obviously california state automated welfare system. and state automated welfare system is a term and every state is meant to have one. in california, we've had three. we have three at the present time. we had four several years ago. and the federal government has pushed california over the last several years in the direction of developing a single statewide automated system. there are two reasons for that, really. one is that the federal government would like the see systems that are consistent from county to county in terms of application of rules and calculations, leading to the determination of eligibility for calworks, medi-cal, and of course the other thing is maintaining three systems expensive. and since the feds pay a very large share of the costs of these systems, they would like to reduce their costs. the m.o.u. is designed to facilitate shared development work before the 58-county j.p.a. is formed. at this point, we believe we're on a track to form the 58-county j.p.a. next summer. so we are really talking about a 10 or 11-month period that this m.o.u. will be the guiding document for shared development purposes. there are two projects that have been identified that will be worked on under the m.o.u. that we are bringing. one is a revision of the online calworks appraisal tool, which generally is overed to as ocat. the other is the foster elgability subsystem. the m.o.u. will become effective when it is signed by all 18 counties within the calwin consortium. and lit give the calaces project the abilities to procure and contract for development work on the two programs that i just mentioned. the work that is done under this m.o.u. will be overseen by the calsaws leadership team. and that is a team put together to guide the transition process from the three consortium that exist today to the one consortium that will exist next summer and wills be the consortium that develops the final system that all 58 counties will use. at this point, we anticipate that all of the costs on the two projects will be covered by state and federal revenue. we also anticipate that those state and federal revenues will be directed straight from the state to the calace. there is a possibility, and it is referenced in the m.o.u. attached to the materials for today's item, that leaves open the possibility of a county contribution. at this point, we don't believe that there will be one for these two projects. but the possibility is referenced. i would just say in the ongoing cost of the saws work, there's been a county share in the past. it has been very small and our current year budgets for the support of the calwin program, 98% of the cost is covered by state and federal revenue and 2% is county share w., that i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you for letting us know the possible financial impact of approving this. i wanded to know historically how california set up three different systems and are we the only system that has multiple systems to distribute to our welfare benefits? >> to the best of my knowledge, we're the only state that has multiple systems and that is part of the federal government's interest in moving us to a single system. the systems have grown up over a period of time. i would characterize the calwin counties as being middle-sized counties, probably counties with investing in social services work. and there is more sophisticated development over time. i think that has characterized the calwin consortium. the c-4 consortium has had smaller counties for the most part. has had a simpler system and then the los angeles systems have been obviously tailored to los angeles's particular needs. >> that is the calace system? >> well, calace is the combination of c-4, the 39 county c-4 consortium and los angeles county. >> i'm sorry. this is the c.r.v. and -- >> it is definitely a complicated -- >> does it make it difficult for our recipients to transfer their benefits county to county because we have multiple systems? >> so, there is -- there are processes for transferring. with me is bernadette casino who is our calwin manager. each county has a calwin manager who serves as a liaison. >> and i see most of the bay area counties are in calwin. >> we are. mainly in calwin. >> alameda and san mateo -- >> yeah. do you want to talk about transfers? >> good morning, supervisors. i manage the calwin system. in troefrns your question, yes, having three systems does make it difficult for our participants to move from county to county. it involves sometimes faxing over documents. having a sing statewide system will make it easier for an individual to move from one county to another. in terms of delivery of service and timely issuance of benefits. >> i'm glad that we're moving forward s. there anything that we fear losing by moving to a consolidated system because mr. caplan had mentioned that those that are on the calwins system tend to be countis that really invest and believe in human services. so is there something systematically that we could lose by being in one statewide system with countis that may have differing prioritis from san francisco's? >> in terms of policies, we have federal and state regulations to abide by. i believe that with a single statewide system, some counties will be given some leeway to introduce policis that will forward our goals and philosophies as a city and county. there will be some room for that. however, the goal is standardization and consistency across counties. >> in the work we have done so far in moving towards a single statewide system, there's been a lot of attention given to governance questions. and we are moving to a system that is meant to -- it's almost a representative democracy system. there are six regions that have been established within the state and each region is given a number of votes based on population in the region. so, san francisco will be part of -- right? it's called the bay area group. but it is sort of a little bit larger than i think what i traditionally think of as the bay area. it starts in monterey and goes north to napa and sonoma and includes all the counties in between. there are 12 counties in the group. and, you know, there is an opportunity for counties within each group to talk and develop position on where the system is going and to have their roementzives informed discussion at the consortium-wide level. so i think there is the ability to continue to work on pushing the growth of the system and i think that that will probably happen. from the bay area counties. there's been a lot of work to this point as we have worked on what needs to go into the initial system to look at the components of thes calwin system and to make sure that the functionalty represented by those components is adequately covered in a new calsaw system. so i -- i think you're right. i think there is attention there. but i think there is also voice that's -- that is very possible. >> mmment . thank you. i don't have a question about the actual motion that you're asking the board of supervisors to take. i plan on supporting it. i was curious when i understood that we had three different systems that, i wasn't aware of, in the state of california what that meant for the actual user. just a quick question. this is kind of a side bar. but i know that many of our recipients move a lot. merely because of instability or insecurity of housing. and so if they miss appointments because they don't get notices, how does this h.s.a. deal with recipients that are moving all the time and, therefore, may lose eligibility because they're not able to receive mails and notifications? >> so, i mean, ongoing notify scattered showersing an issue. -- notification is an ongoing issue. we e-mail people, text people. and this is all in an effort to be in better contact with our clients and, you know, to remind people that they have -- that they have periodic paperwork to file, that they need to come into the office. they need to re-up their eligibility. and i think we're nerl that work. -- we're early in that work but the initial findings have been promising. it does work to text and bring people in. i think it is imperfect, but we are attempting to build out communication that addresses some of that. >> yeah. it is very difficult. the unfortunate characteristic of poverty is often that you're moving a lot because of the lack of financial stability and so it's just -- i know it is an ongoing issue, but one that i've been thinking about. so, we'd love to hear more at another time. >> so do we think a lot about it. yes. >> thank you so much, mr. caplan. see nothing other question from members of committee, we'll open it up for public comment on item number four. seeing none. public comment is now closed. colleagues can we move this item forward recommendation to the full board and dwoek that without objection. mr. clerk, can you please call item 5 and 6 together? >> agenda items number five and six are an ordinance and resolution about a lawsuit and unmitigated claim against the county and city of san francisco. >> madame chair, i would submit that perhaps we can approve these without going to closed session also in member of this panel would like to convene in closed session. but they seem pretty straight forward. >> ok. i actually didn't have questions on either item. so, can we do that with that discussion? ok. >> but we still need to take public comment. >> yes. yes. i will take public comments on these items but won't take a motion to convene into closed session. so let's take a -- why don't we open it for public comment on items five and six. seeing no public comment, public comment is now closed. colleagues -- >> i would make a notion move item five and item six to the full board with positive recommendation. >> so we have a motion to move both items forward because we did not convene into closed session, we don't need take a motion to not disclose so we'll take that motion without objection. mr. clerk, are there any other items before this committee? >> there is no further business. >> meeting adjourned. >> good morning everyone. you guys sound as excited as i am. i am so happy to be here today. this is a project that so many people, who came together to make it happen, the masonic street scape improvement. how about a hand for the beautiful plaza. this project is a transformational redesign of what most of our streets in san francisco will be looking like. so many beautiful amenities. you can see the plaza back the nice stonework. you will hear about that today. you can see the new cycle track which is raised for cyclists. you know, it is beautiful. the street design itself. all the landscaping. all the beautiful things that our city is evolving into. this is a model street. we have been doing these projects all around the city. a few weeks ago we were on broadway. we have done in the mission and we have many more of these projects to come. all of the agencies involved, you will hear from them. the beautiful art behind me. how about some applause for the san francisco arts commission. all that beautiful work. we will hear from the m.t.a. and we will hear from planning, you will hear from p.u.c. at all of us. this is a way that a project should be done. all of the agencies working together, along with the community and the community, most important, on behalf of all of us, i want to say thank you for all the patients. all of those phone calls, all those concerns that we went through, you know, today all that is over and we will be enjoying this beautiful street. i can also tell you that the leadership has always been involved. sometimes when you call me or you call one of the agency heads, when you don't get the answer you want to, you always go to the top person. and the person i am about to introduce to someone who is very familiar with this project. someone who was the supervisor of district 51 this project was active. and now our mayor, london breed. welcome her. [applause] >> mayor breed: thank you, mohammed. first of all, let's give it up for the sombre band which is led by public works employees. thank you so much for being here. they don't just deal with infrastructure and clean the streets, they are artist too. how cool is that optically let me just tell you. when i was supervisor for district five, and i first started in 2013, i got so many complaints from my constituents, probably throughout my entire career, more complaints about this masonic boulevard street than any other place else. and i am so -- i am probably more happy than anyone else besides the people who live on this block that it is finally, finally done. how exciting is that? i want to be clear. this project is about safety. we no kak sadly, this was one, and probably still is, we are hoping these improvements will change that, one of the most dangerous streets in san francisco. and part of getting to vision zero, where we don't have any fatalities as a result of the conditions of our roads, is making the hard decisions to make the changes necessary to make our streets safe. this is about making sure people who are walking the streets feel safe. this is about making sure people who are bicycling feel safe. this is about making sure people who are driving and being safer. this is about bringing the community together for the purposes of creating a road that hopefully will lead to less problems than before. the number of challenges, the number of complaints, we hope that this will lead to the kind of results that will make this a safer and better street for all to use throughout san francisco. throughout the process, i want to thank so many people who have been actively engaged and patients. especially the people who live here. the people who have businesses along masonic. those are the people who have had to endure many of the challenges that existed. i also want to apologize to many of the drivers who consistently complained about their wheel alignments to me. this smooth road with clear direction will make it possible to avoid that on this particular street, at least. this project includes separated bike lanes along the corridor. i know there are some concerns about protected bike lanes and it is something that we will address. newly paved roads, sidewalks and curb ramps. leiter sidewalks and pedestrian lighting. which is absolutely amazing. but this project also included much-needed infrastructure improvement. a new water main. on both sides. now, sometimes it is the things we do not see that are the most exciting thing is to complete a project and make a city where it could. a new sewer line that now runs on both sides as well. also, this new and beautiful public plaza. applause for everyone to enjoy. i want to thank so many people who made this possible, and clearly, you see that there are so many trees. more trees than we probably need. but i want to thank the public works department for the work that they did in doing this project but also the future work that they will do in maintaining those many trees along masonic. i want to thank the public utilities commission, the san francisco m.t.a., the san francisco planning department, the county transportation authority, and when i was on the board and the county transportation authority, i hope to leave the efforts to secure the additional funding we needed to get this project on. i want to thank the san francisco arts commission and so many that have made it possible. this project, overall, improves public safety, creates new open space for our community, and strengthens our infrastructure for years to come. when i was supervisor, high, michael, one of the leaders who basically helped move this project forward, thank you so much for being here and your advocacy of getting this project done. when i was on the board of supervisors, one of the persons in my office to help deal with many of those complaints and challenges from the folks who lived here and work here was, at the time, my legislative aide, vallie brown. she is now the supervisor to represent this district. ladies and gentlemen, district five supervisor, vallie brown. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, mayor breed. i was told by someone, when i am riding my bike and i have photos, to put my helmet up front so everyone knows that yes, i too wear a helmet when i'm out there. kids, where your helmets. i just want to thank everyone for coming today. this is amazing. i started working on this masonic boulevard at the issues that we were having, to safety issues we were having, in 2005. there was a group of us, michael, dug, a bunch of us who came out at night when it was rainy and cold. we had our signs up to reduce the speed to 25 miles. because if you remember before then, it was a lot faster. it was our little mini freeway. we were out here it, day and night, going across the street, up and down masonic and working on the state level to reduce it to 25 miles an hour. and then that happened. we are excited about it. we knew we needed to do more. and then we had the tragedy of a bicyclist getting killed. he was riding riding his bike in 2010 and he was killed by a car. it made everyone sad, furious, and also, gave us the power to keep moving. we needed to make sure that we needed to change masonic. needed to be changed not only for people who rode their bikes on masonic, not only for the kids that are at san francisco day school that walk around masonic, and the people who live here. they were also complaining that the noise and the pollution of the way masonic was was across a freeway. so we worked on that and we have these amazing community meetings. and michael and doug and tim and the others were at these meetings. we had 80-100 people at a planning meeting for masonic. we had m.t.a. who would lead to them. they were amazing meetings. we were there, probably, we had 6-8 meetings that we had the community, everyone coming together to work on what will make masonic safe and what we felt good on whether we are walking, biking, driving or coming out of your home. and then back the next phase was funding it. and then mayor breed, who was supervisor breed at the time, puts the funding funding through t.a. so we could get realization that we have this beautiful boulevard. but we are not done. if you are a cyclist, we have a few blocks that need some work. as mayor breed said, we are going to do that. i was at first, a little bit where each. we will be celebrating a boulevard that we are still working on? and then i realized, and i actually called my og, michael and others, to say why kate do we support this as it is now? and we really do. we support it because it is absolutely beautiful. when we first did -- name to the bike lanes on bell and oak, we had to change those. at first we put the bike lanes and nsa move forward we realized we have to tweak it this way and we have to tweak it this way to be safe. that is the way i look at masonic now. i want to thank everybody who has been here for the last 15 years, really working to change this. at all the departments that are involved. d.p.w., m.t.a., p.u.c., that came together and said, we will change this boulevard, not only for the people who live here, but for the people who walk, visit and bike here. thank you and i will bring up my colleague, supervisor catherine stefani because this area, we have three different districts that intersect. we cross all the time. i would like to bring up catherine stefani. supervisor stefani? >> thank you supervisor brown. it is so great to be here today. i love that we shared this area. san francisco faces many

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