Transcripts For SFGTV Special BOS Govt Audits Committee 10616 20161016

[gavel] good morning and welcome to the government audit and Oversight Committee for today, october 6, 2016. I am the chair of the Committee Aaron peskin joined by Committee Member and board president london breed to my left. Our clerk is ms. Erica major. Ms. Major do you have any announcements. Yes. Please silence all cell phones and electronic devices. All documents submitted to the clerk and items will be on the clerk and items will be on the october 18 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. Thank you. Could you please read the first item. Item 1 is a hearing to receive presentations from the citys external auditor Macias Gini Oconnell and kpmg llp. Thank you. Do we have a representative from the Controllers Office. Ms. Frank. Yes, good morning supervisors i am here to introduce the external auditors. First you will hear from m go and kpmg senior manager. Great and what is the status of the consolidated annual Financial Report . Hows that coming along . Eer. Starting the final phase right now and putting in adjustments so we dont have the Financial Statements together yet but anticipated it will be completed in november around thanksgiving. Okay. And then we will come back in the spring over the single audit is completed and the financial audit and present to you any findings for all the departments. Sounds good. Please proceed. Good morning i am annie lee from m go and lisa from kpmg. Were going to do our presentation together because theyre similar. I believe you have the documents in front of you and the Audit Service plan as well as kpmgs and the first item i will go over is the planned scope of services. Our firm m go does the cafr annual Financial Report audit, the citys oddity the retirement success, the Successor Energy the port of San Francisco and the finance corporation and the oddis for the automobile and workmans comp program and the Transportation Fund and the transportation act and agreed upon procedures for the appropriations limit. And for kpmg the scope of our audit we audit four stand alone departments, one being the San Francisco health system, the other being the Municipal Transportation Agency. These are page 11 of your slides. For the mta we issue a Financial Statement audit, a single audit and three agreed reports that were engaged to separately opine on and the Public Utilities commission and we issue a report in the january time frame on the statement of changes in the balancing account of the water enterprise and then we audit the San Francisco International Airport and we conduct both a Financial Statement audit and a single audit. So next were go over the objectives. You can find the information on page 12 and 13 of our plan and page five of kpmgs plan. Basically the objective is [inaudible] on the Financial Statements and sproid absolute assurance. In terms of management responsibilities its on pages 13 through 15 of the m go audit plan as well as page seven of kpmgs presentation. To summarize the Information Management is responsible for the Financial Statements and compliance with the applicable requirement as well as having effective internal controls over Financial Reporting as well as for compliance. The next item is the timeline and that is found on page five of mgos plan and page 13 of kpmgs plan. As carmen mentioned earlier the main item strt citys audit and the cafr and should be completed around november thanksgiving and the single audits should be completed and we will bring back the results. The last item i would like to go through in the last section of the audit plan on pages 19 through 21. Theyre announcements issued by the government Accounting Finance board so were announcements that have to be implemented by the city in the next three to four years. The two i would like to highlight are gasb 73 and 74 that relate to the opeb standards so there are changes in how the opeb benefits will be contacted for by the opeb plan as well as the employer and how the information will be presented in the Financial Statement. These are the gasb 74 and 75 74 Financial Reporting [inaudible] benefits. And what about gasb 82 . Gasb 82 is not effective yet. It is a amendment to the pension issue which was implemented by the city excuse me in fiscal year 2015, so because of implementation that was done by Government Entities country wide there were issues brought up to the gasb, to the board about the financial standards so they have issued some amendments to clarify the original pension pronouncements. Right and i do want to point out that mta did elect to early adopt gasb 82 and there was a nuisance in the standard that was applicable to them so the implementation of that will be reported in the 2016 audit that we issue this month. Thats correct. And it didnt have any impact on the rest of the city. And i just to announce we have been joined by vice chair supervisor norman yee. With that we will take any questions that you may have. Colleagues any questions on the audit plan report by mgo and kpmg . Seeing none we will see you after you figure out where our material weaknesses are. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any members of public to testify on item 1 . Seeing none. Public comment is now closed. And we will can we have a motion to file this item . Moved by supervisor breed without objection the item is filed. Madam clerk can you read the next item. Yes, item 2 is establishing a new Public Benefit civic nonprofit entitled to yerba buena gardens conservancy to assume longterm operating and management responsibility for yerba buena gardens. This item has been brought to us by supervisor kim who i think is joining us so why if there is no objection colleagues read item number 3 and when supervisor kim joins us thank you all for your patience. We will hear from her on item number 2. Madam clerk can you please read item number 3. Yes. Item 3 is receive updates from various city departments who were required to provide a response on the implementation recommendations in nos r. A. 2 and r. B. 1 contained in the 201516 civil grand jury report entitled San Franciscos crime lab promoting confidence and building credibility. Great. We heard this item once before and there was ongoing discussion about the possibility of transferring the crime lab to the City Administrators Office and we wanted to hear more about that and i believe the city administrator and others thought there would be a report or answer by october 6 which is today. Why dont we start is there anybody here from the civil grand jury who would like to say anything or present . If not is there anybody here from i see please come on up. Good morning. My name is charles thompson. Mr. Thompson we remember you well. Yes, thank you, thank you. I just believe its also important to find out a lot of the implementation of the recommendations, particularly the issue of the independence of the crime lab, the movement out of the Police Department, and the issue of reinstating the drug analysis lab. Both of those depend upon the hiring of the civilian scientist and according to the comments that we received back from the city that was to be completed by january of 2017 which is just under three months from now. I think it would be important to find out the status of that as of today as to where the city is in hiring that civilian scientist and what the current estimated hiring date is likely to be. It seemed to me at least a month ago that the time was rather an aggressive time to hire someone like that, and since so much depends upon that person i would like to better get a understanding of where the city stands, and that would be perhaps through the deputy chief who is here today. Yes, we will hear from deputy chief shmidt as to the status of that position as well to the other issues that you raised. Deputy chief schmidt. Good morning. Good morning chief. Thank you. Okay. The status of the Forensic Services director we will start with that, so we identified the position with hr. They put out a rfp to get a Recruitment Firm. We selected the Recruitment Firm of bob muiro and associates and had the kick off meeting and three weeks into the 16 week process for the recruitment and selection of the Forensic Services director. So 16 weeks. That puts you on course to hit january of 17. Yes to select. And we havent had any you know, were excited about the progress that the search firm is making. We expect to be reviewing the job announcement. Weve already identified with them where we will be pushing that out throughout the industry, so the specifics of that we should be reviewing by next week and they should be good to go on the timeline. Good. And as to recommendation ra2 which was going to require further analysis . Yes, so thats going to require further analysis in working with the City Administrators Office, the Controllers Office and the Mayors Office and staff from the city mifert city administrator and i met for a plan and timeline for the analysis. There is a number of operational issues to look at within the Police Department. How we touch on evidence, transport evidence, brins it into the system, how its analyzed and pushed back out to the different stakeholders outside the system so all of our internal processes should be analyzed in this. Theres of course the personnel issues. Theres just many complex areas that this touches upon so weve committed to forming working groups on each end and started on our end. The analysis of those systems so that we can begin meeting and scoping out just what that would look like for the city. So would it be fair to characterize that as this is unlikely this functional transfer to happen anytime soon. Is that a Fair Assessment . Yes. I think that we need we really need to understand the full scope of what we would be under taking as a city, and so i think the smart thing is put the work in now, and then you know move forward with the presented analysis that can be considered in and determination made. Colleagues any questions for Deputy Schmidt and anything you want to cover . For the record he defers to the deputy chief. Well, theres a first. [laughter] are there any members of the public who would like to testify on this item numberly, Public Comment . Seeing none. Public comment is now closed. Thank you for the update chief. Any questions for members ever the panel . Seeing none. Public comment is now closed and can we have a motion to file this item . Before we file the item theres two items in here, right, that we need to respond to . Thats correct. So we would like to read that into the record. Madam clerk could you read the first one that we need to respond to [inaudible] sure. Just one second. Its i believe ra2 is the first one. At the bottom of page two. The rpz ra2 the mayor should direct the board of supervisors should approve and the controller facilitate the budget and assets and personnel and management from the crime lab sfpd the Police Department to gga General Services department to Administrative Services. And the recommendation for the response is that the recommendation will not be implemented. The board of supervisors and the reason for this is that the board of supervisors reports recommendation number ra2 will not be implemented for reasons as follows. The board of supervisors government audit and Oversight Committee agrees that the San Francisco Police Department and the General Services agency need further time to meet thoroughly formally and evaluate a proposal of how the transfer of the budget, facilities assets, personnel and management from the San Francisco Police Department to the General Services agency. However, until the two departments complete and submit their proposal to the board of supervisors for further evaluation we cannot approve this transfer. Okay. So that one recommendation and the other and that would be for ra2 at the bottom of page two. And the other item is rb1. Rb1 states that the crime lab and the Police Departments office of technology should devote all necessary resources to install and implement [inaudible] Laboratory Management system that will track cases increased Laboratory Efficiency facilitate outcomes and real time sharing of information. So this recommendation has been implemented. The laboratory Information Management system has been purchased and is in the process of being customized with few implementation expected in spring of 2017. The lims system will be fully operational in the spring of thats repeat. The Mayors Office is still in the process of hiring a new Forensic Services director. As was said so that would be the changes to rb1 on page three which last time we said has not been fully implemented but we will change to has been implemented. Correcty. Correct we am take that as a motion from supervisor yee and supervisor breed take that without objection. [gavel] and on the item as amended. [inaudible] into a motion and forwarded as the recommendation. I will move that. All right. Moved with supervisor yee without objection that is the order. All right. Do we have somebody here for item number 2 . Thank you chief schmidt and thank you mr. Burr cow ski. Well why dont we start with the budget and legislative analyst. Would you like to give a briefing on item number 2. Certainly mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Baby branew debra newman from the budget and analyst office. This would acknowledge the establishment of a new benefit civic nonprofit called the yerba buena gardens conservancy and the creation of this nonprofit would be specifically to assume the longterm operating and management responsibility for yerba buena gardens under a master Lease Agreement that would have to come before this body for approval. As you probably know yerba buena gardens was created originally as a redevelopment project area and the office of Community Investment and infrastructure oc ii currently owns and maintains and manages yerba buena gardens as the agency that is taking over since redevelopment has been stopped under state law. It is anticipated that yerba buena gardens will transfer from ocii to the city some time in 2017. The office of Administrative Services has agreed to this transfer. This transfer will be done at a cost of zero because of the use of the property for Public Services or public operations. Currently yerba buena gardens is shown in page nine of our report. Theres an attachment that shows it is being fully supported with the revenues that are coming from primarily longterm leases that were under entered into by the redevelopment agencies and the properties surrounding yerba buena gardens. As shown in the attachment that was provided by ocii this again is on page nine of the report. The actual revenues in fiscal year 1415 totaled about 13. 3 million and expenses totaled about 8. 4 million resulting in a surplus of over 5 million. However, the projections show that over the next ten years revenues are projected to decrease ranging from 9. 6 million to 11. 6 million with expenses increasing to between 10. 6 and 12. Eight. The reason for the change is primarily due to increases in expenses coupled with significant Capital Improvement costs that are assumed to occur in those latter years. Given that this legislation is would then as i indicated in 2017 ocii intends to transfer the property of yerba buena gardens to the city that is not the subject of this legislation. In addition, if the intent is to enter into a longterm master Lease Agreement with yerba buena gardens conservancy that is also not the subject of what is before you. This resolution would do is simply state the intent is to enter into this agreement and set the policy for the creation of this nonprofit. I note the nonprofit has already been created. If this is done the future master Lease Agreement would need to be done on a sole source basis and we therefore say that this recommendation this resolution is a policy decision for the board of supervisors. If the board wishes to approve this resolution we also make two recommendations to you. One to provide guidance to both the newly formed nonprofit as well as the Real Estate Division who is working with them right now regarding who would make the appointments, the appointment process and the weighting of the board of directors decisions. This information is part of a master lease provisions that would brought back to the board of supervisors in 2017 for your approval. The other recommendation we make is to amend the legislation on page four lines 11 through 17 to delete the current language and instead state it is the Real Estate Division that is leading the analysis and recommendations related to yerba buena gardens long range Capital Improvement funding needs and the potential Revenue Sources to address those needs with such information provide oned to the board of supervisors when the master Lease Agreement is brought back to the board of supervisors for approval in 2017. So weve been joined by the author of this resolution supervisor kim. Ms. Newman this is not meant to sound naive but show you my level of understanding. This seems like the old concept that the city used to under take with parking garages like portsmouth square and japantown. Is that a fair analogy . I believe that could be a fair analogy. I think because in the parking garages the city owned them. There was a nonprofit that was separate from the city that was operating them and maintaining them. And thats still the case in some instances . In two instances in portsmouth square as well as japantown that is still the case. Of all the ones that the city has taken back over time. Thats correct. Theyre under the operation of the Municipal Transportation Agency and they both own and manage them. Right. Supervisor kim. Thank you so much chair peskin. My apologies for being late to this hearing and i want to thank the budget and legislative analyst for their report and we do agree with the amendments that they have provided today in the report. Just to give a little bit of background although i am looking out at the audience and this group understands the history of the yerba buena gardens but for the sake of the committee and the public is in the middle of the south of market. Its an inter related web of park cultural institutions and businesses that serve San Francisco residents workers and visitors alike. In addition to the Convention Center there is a Child Care Center, playground, Bowling Alley, skating rink and museum and restaurant along the yerba buena gardens. On any given weekend the playground is filled with children all over the city playing and running in the middle of a bustling city and [inaudible] fifth and mission street. The gardens is an expansive area that hosts dance performers and Music Festivals and the annual Martin Luther king birthday observer and the filipino patrade and the parade and festival. Because of participation with the city yerba buena gardens has been become a vibrant and well utilized space and the stakeholders, many around since the very beginning had a huge impact on what these gardens looked like and ensured that it also accommodated needs of families and seniors and residents in the area as well as the tourists and workers. Its a successful model of a well run and resourced open space that needs to be replicated in our post redevelopment era. In anticipation of the changes from the transfer of the garden from the gormer Redevelopment Agency to the city the office of strategic investment has been working with our office as well as stakeholders to create a Governance Infrastructure that ton that works with the institution. With the assistance of outside cult multicultural the yerba buena is going to have a new group to maintain the conservancy and the yerba buena gardens conservancy will enter into a master lease to assume operations of the garden. Due to the scale and the age of the building a longterm plan is needed for Successful Operation and maintenance of the garden and clear budget with identified revenue is needed before our lease is signed and the transfer occurs. These gardens are a tremendous benefit to the city and as someone who lives a few blocks away its a space they often walk through in the evenings they love when i have time to go on the weekends to see free dance performances and concerts as well as shop, and its certainly one that is considered an important resource to the south of market and yerba buena neighborhood. The plan can not be left for a future date and cannot be expected that the new Public Benefit corporation will identify revenues. The city is in the best position to identify the revenues and the assets should be included as part of the Capital Planning program and we want to make sure there is ongoing commitment of the resources fully dedicated to the programming and success of the garden. The resolution provides direction to the department of real estate as to the expectations of this board of supervisors prior to signing the master Lease Agreement, and my intention today if not stated earlier is to continue the resolution to incorporate feedback from the department of real estate and the budget and legislative analyst on this resolution and i hope chair peskin we can do this item again in two weeks. I know many members of the audience are here to speak on this item and before that and im not sure if john updike presented on this item. He has not. I would like him to come up and present first and then finally been Public Comment begins i want to thank the many stakeholders and staff that have worked so hard really several years since the disillusion of redevelopment to come up with a plan. I just have to say as a supervisor with many competing needs and interests to address its amazing to have such a strong and committed group of stakeholders that have been around for decades working on making sure that this continues to be a great cultural asset for the city and so i just have a lot of faith in the future of our gardens because of our stakeholders and i hope the city will be able to successfully partner to make it a great place for San Francisco so mr. Updike if you could come up first and chair peskin if we may open for Public Comment. Sure. Thank you supervisor peskin and supervisor kim. We are supportive of the amendments as put forward by the budget and legislative analyst. Its been a pleasure and an honor frankly to work with this group over the last couple of years now to ensure we do have a seamless transition and i think this discussion by the elected officials is helpful as we go from our term sheet which has been highlighted, the key points in the budget and legislative analysts report to the master lease itself. I know we have a group of individuals over here chomping at the bit to see the master lease and begin these negotiations in earnest. I too share that and with your feedback over the coming weeks we can do that and come back in 2017 with that agreement for the boards review and approval. I would say that in terms of modeling another example that we have all discussed internally is the success of the San Francisco wholesale Produce Market and that approach of creating a very clear vision and direction for the private entity that will receive the lease from the city and so long as the operations are within that vision its a fairly hands off approach from the city. Again replicating what has been successful in yerba buena to date and if theres deviations there is meets and confers with a city as the partner. Thats the approach were taking here. I think its been a collaborative and positive approach to date. I am happy to answer questions that you have. Mr. Updike relative to the wholesale produce model how do they deal with the Capital Needs over time . That approach includes a complete renovation of the facility so from a capital standpoint its slightly different in that theres an expectation of an 80 million renewal in the asset over the coming 20 years and the Funding Sources for that somewhat similar here we wanted to create a structure that permitted the widest range of Funding Sources so phase one with new market tax credits. Phase two maybe grant sources and other internal Revenue Sources and essentially bonding against those Revenue Sources so theres some similarity. I think we have benefits here that we went dont have the Produce Market at the central soma plan and opportunities that we dont have for that facility but it is really a self sustaining model and i think the more we can bring this to that model the better for all. But if you if one looks at the budget analysts numbers on the back of their report relative to Capital Spending projected over ten years and then you look at the therefore be it resolved which has gone from a projection of 30 million to 50 million over the next 30 years i guess is the city going to be on the hook for that 50 million . Where is that 50 million going to come from . We would like the opportunity to validate some of the longer term figures. Im not sure i have confidence in the 30 or the 50. Im not sure what that real number is over longterm. Some of the systems were using get a little out of calibration when you go beyond ten years. I have good confidence in the ten year pro forma in front of and you shows a performing fiscal operation. Yes, theres a concern down stream with that capital gap, and the approach is again this master lease approach forwards a wide range of opportunities. I dont think were ready to make commitments as to what the opportunities should be but thats the work we need to do in the coming months. And just one question which i am sure people here can answer. Does the conservancy exist as a corporate entity . My understanding is yes and formed the nonprofit through a collaborative process. We were happy to see that happen so we had a formal entity on the other side of the negotiations. Thank you. So why dont we open this up to Public Comment. Thank you all for your patience this morning and come on up. Can i call up a few names . Sure. Speaker cards and first cathy moffit the executive director of the yerba buena benefit district as well as the new president of the yerba buena conservancy. Lance burrwell the chair of the benefit district. John and cathy carr and anyone else. Thank you supervisor and thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. My name is cathy moffit and the executive director of the yerk yerk benefit district but i am speaking on the board of directors of the conservancy and the chair of that institution. Im going to take you down memory lane if you will. I know supervisor kim has done some of this but i want to offer a different perspective. In 1996 the mayor embraced the vision of construction of the new civic center that was vital for the tourist Visitor Industry with creation of a public park that would benefit all of San Francisco. Four decades later thanks to the hard work of San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, committed stakeholders, old and new art institutions were are nearing the completion of that vision with the construction of the Mexican Museum. As required by state law as you already heard oc ii or the Successor Agency has to dissolve all of the assets so the city will retain ownership or obtain ownership in 2017 so with the phase out of the Redevelopment Agency now in process its time to establish a new operating and managing structure for the yerba buena gardens and as supervisor kim mentioned in her remarks the neighborhood has been meeting for more than two years with consultant and the city and oc ii what [inaudible] and the basic premise what we want to see so the idea we want to form a new nonprofit that is going to be dedicated solely to the oversight and management of this organization. I just want to mention a few organizations involved in this. Besides my organization the Yerba Buena Center for the arts, the alliance, festival consortium. Theres a lot of yerba buena, very confusing. And even more. From a neighborhoods perspective its critical to the overall success of the larger neighborhood. We know that well managed public space that is activated and creative ways creates a nexus for community and thats something difficult to do in an urban setting. The garden supports local businesses, residents and visitors alike and offers a special amenities for those attending a convection at Moscone Center so we propose the formation of the nonprofit that is dedicated to the operation of the facilities and hope you consider supporting that particular resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning chair peskin, supervisor yee, supervisor breed and supervisor kim. I am lance burrwell and serving my second year of the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District and work at the st. Regis hotel and residents across the street from the gardens and as the chair the gardens definitely represent the landmark and namesake of our district. Were a district that supervisor kim recognizes many times in meetings that has a dirth of green space and as a commercial operator and paying in towards the maintenance fee on an annual basis of the gardens we recognize its a tremendous asset to our residents, our hotel guests, conventioneers and we are in full support of the yerba buena gardens conservancy. The individual Steering Committee bring with them the intelligence, the credibility, the business acumen and manage the gardens successfully and take the potential burden from the city and back to the community with city oversight so i urge you to please support supervisor kims resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning supervisors. I john and director of todd cowith the tenets of yerba buena and the care of the consortium, a member of the Conservancy Board and i live there and i am urging today to support this resolution that is very important. Our intent is straightforward. The gardens is a wonderful place now. Ocii and the stakeholders working together run a wonderful place for the citizens of the city and our neighborhood and the goal is to keep it that way. Hopefully you wouldnt notice any change at all in fact and i know and members of the committee know that takes Adequate Funding that in order to run any facility properly there just has to be sufficient funding to do the job right and that is the problem that actually as we stand here today hasnt not been answered or resolved by the city. The city did not mention should have that the 500,000 per year of operating funding that Moscone Center has provided all these years since the center opened ended last year. It ended it was terminated as part of the whole moscone expansion financing that was consomme nateed last year and short of the operating revenue compared to where we have been all of the years and the city has proposed any means to make up for the loss of income and the impact of Moscone Center on the garden happens and used to go with the dream force and theyre in the garden s and the impact happens but lost the funds. The longterm number its going to take a lot over 30 years to do the major renovations of the buildings, the ice rink, the galleries and the childrens are you assume and the landscaping. Its expensive to do the renovations. We need to know how it will be paid for at least conceptually. I can point in a specific direction. There is a proposal to establish a central soma Community Benefit district as part of that plan to provide 300 million over the longterm for all city owned facilities in central soma. That is an actual working proposal that will come to this board for enactment in the next two years as part of the package. Thats a source. The city has no link to another source. What were asking you to do with the resolution and when you finalize it mandate that the city name possible sources, not like we hope maybe there will be money from somewhere. We dont know where but actually where it comes from with of course the citys approval and future actions. Thank you. Mr. Oberling any thoughts on the budget analysts recommendation and how appointments are made to this body . That is crucial and we need time to talk through that issue carefully with this board of supervisors, the Mayors Office and the city administrator. The goal is have shared appointments, Community Appointments from our community being a majority but a very substantial representation on the board from the city, but it needs to be well considered and talked through, so we didnt make a proposal yet in order to allow time for that conversation to happen. Yeah, i mean to supervisor kim and to the other folks on this panel i greatly prefer if we figure that out at the front end rather than the middle. Okay thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning chairman peskin and supervisors. Thank you for considering this resolution for establishing the yerba buena gardens conservancy, yerba buena gardens conservancy. My name is karen carr and i wear several hats as the other speakers do. I serve on the interim yerba buena gardens conservancy. I also serve on the Yerba Buena Alliance board and one of the funding members 25 years ago for that board. The Alliance Board represents businesses, cultural institutions, residents and they were a network for getting the neighborhood together to share experiences and support the neighborhood. I am also a 42 year continuous San Francisco resident. I have been a homeowner and live in Bernal Heights for the last 37 years but work exclusively in the south of market neighborhood for the last 20 years opening new condo buildings and establishing residential communities including three residential communities in the yerba buena gardens area. My two children are raised in San Francisco and frequented the gardens many times for events and used all the different venues. My grandchildren now use the gardens and visit those same amenities. I currently manage a building called one hawthorn which is one block away from the yerba buena gardens and consists of 165 property owners, 300 plus residents and we have a baby boom going on in our building right now so the Childrens Center is so integral part of the my residents lives. On behalf of the alliance, the homeowners, the residents, the visitors and my family i urge you to support your support in shepherding this resolution through the approval process. We are passionate about this precious jewel of yerba buena gardens and all that encompasses. We would like to work at continuing this as it for the past 20 years. At this time i would like to ask all the supporters for the yerba buena gardens to please stand. And i would like to give you a hard copy of the 85 letters of support that were previously emailed. Great. We will pick those up. Are there any other members of the public who would like to testify on item number 2 . Seeing none. Public comment is now closed. [gavel] i know that supervisor kim has a number of amendments that are before us. They are not substantive in nature at least thats my non lawyer opinion on them and maybe we can have a motion to take the amendments and then continue this to our next regularly scheduled meeting. A motion by supervisor breed and supervisor yee is okay with that. Can we take those amendments . Before we continue i have questions. Supervisor breed. Okay. Thank you. I know as a former member of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency commission its great to see us at this point. Thank you john for your consistency in being active in this particular project. I know so many people have been a part of i guess revitalization of this area. We have come a really long way. I am really excited especially that after years of delay and challenges we are moving the Mexican Museum forward as promised and i just have one concern and understand where [inaudible] fits in the erkszcasion of the lines. I understand its not within the garden boundaries but its definitely an Important Institution as it relates to being a part of this entire vision of the gardens and i want to make sure that a couple of things happen. Specifically we know that Yerba Buena Center for the arts which is is that the Center Located okay. Yerba buena center for the arts. We know receives annual funding and a lot of that is paid through revenues generated from for example, the rent that is maybe paid by the marriott and other facilities there. I think that one of the concerns i have with museums bike moa d and the Mexican Museum making sure there is a clear you know embedded process or clear embedded requirement that somehow revenues generated actually are specified to be provided to those two particular institutions in addition to Yerba Buena Center for the arts so i really want to see a well thought out plan because i think theres been a lot of investment in making sure that those organizations succeed. Fortunately the Jewish Museum has been doing a really great job with fundraising and theres a lot of support there. Moad just opened and a great addition to the area and they have their own fundraising vehicle and i am concerned about moad and the Mexican Museum and their need for a consistent level of support as a result of this plan body so i want us to take a real look at including that in this change as well supervisor kim hopefully. Since were going to be continuing this item i would love to make sure that we continue the discussion so that these two museums are definitely protected and preserved and supported longterm as we develop this body to oversee the gardens and so congratulations. I will say to many of the members here who support what were trying to accomplish here. Im not necessarily a fan of the significant city component of the committee. I think its important that the city has a role, but i know that the controlling interest of the body will come from the community that lives and works in the area and i respect and appreciate that, but i do think that the citys role should be limited, and should mostly consist of you know oversight and accountability and making sure that the body is following all the laws and the regulations and the bylaws that get established as a result of this so i am looking forward to seeing a new day for the gardens and i appreciate each and every one of you for your commitment, your consistency and involvement in developing this process and coming up with i think is a really good plan so thank you. Thank you supervisor breed. Supervisor yee. Thank you chair peskin. I just want to say this is actually exciting to be at this hearing today. I was actually had the privilege of taking part in some of the earlier discussions i believe in late 70s or 80s in terms of the visions of the gardens itself and wanting to you know serve the greater community, and yet be able to serve the immediate neighborhoods in particularly with the Child Care Center that was conceptualized. Sometimes that gets left out but to the credit of the staff of the Redevelopment Agency at the time they were very open to a very broad vision and actually had a lot of Community Input into the process and the fact that we could have easily had a center or a gardens which was more adult centric says a lot to those people early on you know theres a lot of children. We need to do something for our youth. Lets put a Bowling Alley in there. Lets put a Child Care Center in there and a ice skating rink when in fact both ice skating rinks and Bowling Alleys at the time were disappearing all over the place and they said no, no this could work so i am seeing it work. I am looking forward to the continuation of this item so that you come back with more solid concept for the board and so forth. I am hoping i agree with supervisor breed in regards to the makeup. I hope it will be dominated by caring people around the neighborhood that is actually using the place, living there and working there so good luck. Thank you supervisor yee. Supervisor kim. Thank you. And i apologize Committee Members but we are still working through these amendments and so actually im going to just request that the committee undo its motion to amend and we will bring forward the final, final amendments in two weeks. I do want to concur with chair peskin that it is really important that we work to identify revenue to support this really important open space in the longterm, and that we do not just leave our stakeholders who work so hard to make this an incredible place for the neighborhood hanging, and it really you know, the yerba buena gardens and its great to hear supervisor yee talk about his involvement early on but it really did fulfill a vision that much of the Community Asked for which is yes we are going to have a huge Convention Center and hotels and retail, but we still have to recognize the fact that the south of market is a neighborhood and many Affordable Housing buildings for seniors and families and market rate as well will reside intermixed amongst all uses and we want to make sure this is a neighborhood that is able to address a myriad of needs and the Child Care Center, the museum, the play circle it really is an amazing thing to see right in the center of the city and it would not be possible if not for the tremendous dedication of many of the people that are here today and so i will say this again. It is a tremendous relief to know there will be longterm advocacy and stewardship by this group. You know long after and through many different supervisors in this district and thats great that this neighborhood will continue to be there and finally to address supervisor breeds question there is a very long dialogue how we continue to support all of our museums in the area. In particular the museums we set up to support our different communities like the Mexican Museum, Jewish Contemporary Museum and moad. We know that the arts doesnt pay for itself and almost impossible for the public to pay for what the arts truly cost to maintain a museum of the type that we have here, and so it will continue to be a big priority. I know that our office is able to work with moad and one of the Major Developers in the Transit District plan, the second tallest building in the neighborhood and dedicating a significant portion of the art fees them to ensure the longterm longevity in the neighborhood but the arts will always be a continued need in the neighborhood and it was one of the promises and ensure the longterm plan for the communities and the city overall so we will have amendments in the next few weeks. Thank you committee for hearing this item and looking forward to some resolution on many of the outstanding issues that we brought up today. Okay. Then we need a motion to rescind. Made by supervisor breed without objection and with that we will continue the item unamended to our next regularly scheduled meeting in two weeks. So moved. So moved without objection. [gavel] and that concludes our agenda. We are adjourned. [gavel]