Community. We have a tenperson limb elimination match. We have a fullsize ring with barside food and drink. We ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. Were hope og get families to join us. Weve done a drag queen bingo and were trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. This is a great part of town and theres a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. Theres a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hanhang out at. We have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. Some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and its exciting. We even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. Its in the San FranciscoGarden District and four beautiful muellermixer ura alsomurals. Its important to shop local because its kind of like a circle of life, if you will. We hire local people. Local people spend their money at our businesses and those local mean that wor people willr money as well. I hope people shop locally. [ ] 7 and a half million renovation is part of the clean and safe Neighbors Park Fund which was on the ballot four years ago and look at how that Public Investment has transformed our neighborhood. The playground is unique in that it serves a number of age groups, unlike many of the other properties, it serves small children with the childrens play grounds and clubhouses that has basketball courts, it has an outdoor soccer field and so there were a lot of people that came to the table that had their wish list and we did our best to make sure that we kind of divided up spaces and made sure that we kept the old features of the playground but we were able to enhance all of those features. The playground and the soccer field and the tennis fields and it is such a key part of this neighborhood. We want kids to be here. We want families to be here and we want people to have athletic opportunities. We are given a real responsibility to insure that the publics money is used appropriately and that something really special comes of these projects. We generally have about an opportunity every 50 years to redo these spaces. And it is really, really rewarding to see children and families benefit, you know, from the change of culture, at each one of these properties and as a result of, what you see behind us, more kids are playing on our soccer fields than ever before. We have more girls playing sports than we have ever had before. [ applause ] fp and we are sending a strong message that San Francisco families are welcome and we want you to stay. This park is open. Please call the role. Borden present. Eaken present. Heinicke present. Heminger present. Rubke present. Torres present. You have a quorum. Please be advised that brinkman will not be present. Please be advised that the ringing of Electronic Devices are prohibited at the meeting. Any person responsible for one going off may be asked to leave the room. Item 4, approval of the minutes from the december 3rd regular meeting. Okay. Board members. We have the minutes in front of us. I assume there is no Public Comment on this item. Seeing none, comment is closed. Ill entertain a moment to approve the minutes . All those in favor say aye . Any opposed . Item 5. Communications, i have none. Item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business. Board members, a new year, perhaps new business . Dire director heminger happy new year. We all received a copy of the review last month i believe. One thing i noticed, i think it does matter in the real world, the fta is hitting us on the question of how many buses we have spare. This is an issue that im sure many operators struggle with around the country. In this case, what they suggest is Something Like a 20 spare ratio. We have 40 . Double. And obviously, it probably has something to do with the fact that were not putting out the full service, but is it really that big of a gap, that that lack of full service entails . I thought it would be good get a report from staff. Okay. Hopefully that is an answer that can come back. Without objection, well ask the new director to provide an answer to that in his next report. Agreed. Yesterday, i attended the new operator, new operators on board. The new director will talk about that as well, but also supervisor walton was there as well. It was a great day. A very excited and engaged class. Wonderful. Anything else. On that note yes, please, director torres. Director torres in reference to an email that we received regarding the black alliance, i think we need to hear what the progress is on that at the agency. Chair heinicke initial reaction, that is something that should go to them to respond to. But im open to suggestions. Secretary boomer, do you have suggestions on how to address . The email that was provided was actually sent to the department of human resources, thats a citywide issue. I know that our workshop of january 28, there will be some discussion about the efforts with regard to culture within the Organization Diversity and inclusion. This is part of our process during our search for our great new director. Which we discussed in the Search Committee and i wanted to make sure we dont leave it aside and continue to Pay Attention to it. Chair heinicke if the discussion is unsatisfactory, we can take it up in a different form. Okay. While were on the topic of gathering, i had the pleasure of attending my last sftma holiday party. I will be termed out. I will give advice to my successor. If you need cheap applause, give a shoutout to the paint department. Now, without a fancy auditorium and tv cameras, im really thrilled that jeff is still there. Part of the worry was we wouldnt be there. But i knew from the enthusiasm he showed in the interview process and everything, he was going to dig in and has already started doing a wonderful job. With that, let me just for the record, say, welcome director, its wonderful to have you here. I am so honored to be here. Chair heinicke item 7, so we can turn the floor over to director. Good afternoon, directors. I am very happy to be here, my very first sfmta Board Meeting and to be serving this extraordinary board. So my directors report covers a couple of topics and ill probably ad lib at the end. I want to talk about vision zero. I want to talk about a new letter that just went out today. A cease and desist letter for a rogue scooter operator that were going to be responding to. We had some questions and concerns about our parking meters that i want to address. I want to say a few words about our muni art project. Then i want to talk a little bit about foreshadowing of things coming to you in the coming months. Lets start with vision zero. This was not a good year. We lost 29 people on the streets of San Francisco. Most of those deaths were a result of preventable traffic violence. This is a topic that the sfmta staff take very seriously. When we have an incident out on the streets, i and our Rapid Response team and my deputy directors are immediately notified by police or fire, whoever is the First Responder to the incident. And my Rapid Response team typically goes out within a matter of hours to the scene to see what is it that we might learn from this. And how could we continually improve upon the safety of our streets . But we lost 29 people. This is a higher number than last year. If there is any good news in this number, it is that the increase in fatalities in San Francisco was less than in our peer cities. If there is any good news in this number, its that the safety performance of the streets that we have paid careful attention to on our highinjury network, the performance has improved, but this number is still way too high. So in 2020, weve got a lot of work to do. A lot of the work will involve expanding upon the Quick Build Program that this board authorized staff the ability to be able to go out and quickly fix streets, particularly on the highinjury network, even when that means having to make tough choices around the convenience of motorists, the availability of parking compared to Traffic Safety. In 2019, in support of this goal, we added about seven miles of protected bikeway and have three miles under construction. Were not only well on our way to meeting the mayors goal of 20 miles of protected bikeways by 2021, but also having conversations with significantly accelerating that process. This is hard staff work. And will involve tradeoff challenges that will come to this board in the coming year. We know from the report that we produced earlier in 2019, the results, the evaluation of our vision zero engineering projects, that these efforts work and that the response to a rise in traffic fatalities is doubling down on what we know to be successful. Another thing i would like to highlight, the work were doing as part of the tenderloin Traffic Safety workforce. The tenderloin is dear too me as a neighborhood that still welcomes newcomers. Its also a place where the most vulnerable populations are concentrated. And a place where we distribute traffic to and from the freeways. It is also the greatest concentration of severe injuries and fatalities in the city. As a result of that, weve been partnering with organizations within the neighborhood and within our own organization to do some rather significant changes to the streets, but also the hundred small changes that really make a difference in safety outcomes. And so youll be seeing more of that coming in 2020 to this board. The second topic i mentioned is the gox cease and desist letter. You should have been sent copies of that by roberta. In summary, we at the sfmta are firmly supportive of using emerging mobility and innovation in order to achieve the public good, move more people conveniently and provide better choices for the people with the fewest. And we want to reward the private providers who uphold the public good and follow our procedures. We have one player, gox, who is not only ignoring the rules, but doing so in fraudulent ways. Our intention is to use what powers we and the City Attorneys Office have in order to make sure that people who dont follow the rules are not allowed do business on the streets of San Francisco. So well be seeing more of this in the coming months. Youve heard Media Coverage as well as the internal work over the last year about broken parking meters. This is coming not as any surprise to us. The problems that were having with broken parking meters are similar to the problems were having with other equipment throughout the agency, including our train fleet. These are acute problems for the agency and will relate to my Closing Remarks where i talk about primary goals in helping the agency move forward. It is essential we fill our vacant positions, particularly in operation and maintenance. And to get ahead of the problem, using our capital money to buy equipment that lasts longer and has less intense repair needs. So this is an issue that were on top of. Were, of course, investing in promoting the use of park mobile and credit cards which continue to work unlike the coin slots which our customers enjoy jamming. The next topic is the muni art project which is i find delightful. Art is something that we use to elevate us and to see things more deeply. Public transit connects us. I cant think of two better combinations than art and transit, particularly given the fact that muni is the best public realm. Its really the only place in San Francisco where literally everyone comes together and where we see our common humanity. So the sfmta has been supporting local artists through the muni art program in conjunction with San Francisco beautiful and Poetry Society of america. Were bringing in images of local artists that will be displayed in 100 buses for the enjoyment of 750,000 muni riders. The artwork is going to be unveiled in a rolling gallery thursday, 10 30 a. M. Just outside of city hall. The theme is the hidden gems of San Francisco. Finally, id like to conclude with some simple goals that i have started to develop on what is this . Day 14 on the job, that will hopefully become key themes for future directors reports. Its become clear to me that my function within the agency is two simple things. There is a group of tasks that i have to do internal to the organization and a group of things externally. My internal work starts with culture change. Making the sfmta the most inclusive welcoming creative collaborative workforce among transportation agencies in the country. This is a pretty significant part of my work and its one of the reasons why in the first week on the job i asked to meet with the black and africanamerican Affinity Group to talk about issues of racism and exclusion and diminishment within the organization. We need to start there to heal the organization and, frankly, to catch up with other departments and other cities whose race and equity work is far ahead of our own. So one of the things that youll be seeing in our Budget Discussion starting later this month is the ask to help us create a race and equity and Inclusion Team that will focus both internally on the workforce and externally on Inclusive Community process. There is another key theme that is internal which is around hiring. Almost every problem for the agency faces is either tied to or rooted in our vacant positions or our lack of succession planning, or our lack of a clear pipeline to bring the right candidates into public service. We have a new h. R. Director, kim ackerman, who is doing a fantastic job, but just like our maintenance workers dealing with decades of deferred maintenance, our new h. R. Director is dealing with a lot of years of disinvestment and Strategic Thinking around hiring. Thats another thing youll be seeing in the budget workshop and likely in performance metrics, how are we doing filling vacant positions and what are we going do do with the fact that when i walk on the shop floor, im the youngest person in the room . Finally, our external work. And this is kind of my primary function is clearing a path for sfmta staff to do their best wo work. Our staff know how to solve the problems, but they need help clearing a political path. Thats partly my job. And frankly, its part of your job as well. Its one of the reasons i signed up for this adventure, because now is the time to actually clear a political path to allow us to have clarity about our values and to make the tough calls that are necessary in order for the Transportation System to cut its co2 emissions. In order for the system to eliminate fatalities. In order to deliver on the promise of economic expansion, but greater opportunity for those who have the least opportunity among us. And that is the end of my report. Thank you. Wonderful. Welcome, director tomlin. Thank you for an informative and ambitious report. Its one of the reasons youre sitting in the chair, your perspective. Is there any Public Comment on the report . Directors, well hear from the public and then if you have questions or comments for the director, take them up them. Welcome, formally, mr. Tomlin. Id like to add about the internal culture of mta, there is a problem of bullying at the work site. Top management have been guilty of it. And this affects service delivery. And this clearly has to be addressed. I dont wish to single out sfmta as the only agency in the city with the problem, but it would be nice if they were a pathbreaker in resolving the issue. There is bullies and bystanders. Secondly, in respect to the sidewalks. There are too many scooters on the sidewalks. There are too many cyclists. And it endangers pedestrians, especially the aged and disabled. And some controls have to be put over this. You say i congratulate you on telling people of alternative transportation that they have to play by the rules. And youll be more than willing to accommodate them, but once theyre on the sidewalk, it should not be treated like the streets. We dont see automobiles driving on the sidewalks. We dont see motorcycles driving on the sidewalks, but we sure as heck see arrogant bicyclers driving on the sidewalk. And i think this has to be addressed. Other than that, i welcome you to the leadership of mta and wish you success. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hes the last person to turn in a speaker card. There is one more card. Good afternoon, director, first, happy new year to you all, and special thank you to jeffrey tomlin, welcome aboard. You started to enunciate some of the duties youre looking forward to doing in the first six months. I want to make it clear the need to work for transit first. Great majority of the citizens of San Francisco voted for transit first many years ago. And then they went off and they did their regular thing. You could have clearly and hope that we work on it. As an example, way back, and it shows the kind of thing that can happen, so on presidio drive, because we werent concerned with transit first, we were concerned with moving cars, we spaced the stops every other block, which now has become the standard for stopspacing close to 1500 feet. We didnt do it because we wanted to speed the bus up, we did it because if we had more buses making more stops it would have slowed traffic. Its clear that was the case. And every time its one thing to compromise a little bit for an extra parking place around the corner, but we concede. We just worry about it 0 so much, let them get away with it. One of my compatriots mentioned bicycles on the sidewalk. What about cars parking and blocking the sidewalk . Those things, we have to set standards so that people know that transit is first. And of course pedestrians are right after it. I hope i cant wish you luck. Thats not enough. Its perseverance and battle that we wish you. Thanks a lot. Okay. Im told there is one more speaker car