march 24th, 2021, budget and finance committee meeting. i'm mat haney, chair. and i'm joined by ahsha safai and supervisor gordon mar. our clerk is ms. linda wong. i want to think kaleena for broadcasting this meeting. >> clerk: mr. chair, due to the covid-19 health emergency and to protect board members, the board of supervisors committee room are closed, however, the members will be participating remotely. this is pursuant to the various local, state, and

federal orders. the members will participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they are physically present. each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available by calling 415-655-0001, i.d. 1876060436, and press ##. when you're item of interest comes up, dial *3 to line up to speak. best practices are to call from a quiet location and speak clearly slowly and turn down your television. and you can e-mail to myself, the budget and finance committee clerk.

if you wish to make public comment via e-mail, it will be included as part of the official file. finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear of april 6th unless another wise state. mr. chair, that concludes my announcement. >> chairman: thank you. today we have a full budget and finance committee agenda, not as full as normal, i will say, but we still do appreciate everyone for being brief with their presentations and representativetations. representations. please call item one. >> clerk: item one called. [inaudible] members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item to

call 415-655-0001. >> chairman: great. thank you, madam clerk. we have dalia acori from rec and park to present on this item. >> hi. thank you. good morning. i have a presentation to share. let me bring that up. i.d. 1872052695 okay.

goorpg. good morning. i'm with the partnerships division of the recreation and parks department. i'm here today to request your authorization to accept and expand a grant from ka-boom, for $204,000 for the design and construction of the nature and playstation at heron's head park. inspired by the children and nature movement to get kids to unplug and reconnect with the outdoors, the recreation and parks department, with the port of san francisco and with s.f. children are proposing to install a nature playstation at heron's head park. nature exploration areas are spaces that encourage

people of all ages to en a engage with natural elements, including tree trunks and bolders, where children are encouraged to touch and climb and balance, and use branches, pine trees and pine cones for whatever their imagination conjures. they are a way of inspiring life-long connections with nature. the proposed project would be the third nature exploration area for the recreation and parks department and the first in district 10. the proposed project site as heron's head park lies at the edge of a 1.7-mile network of green space, that is transforming dilapidated industrial spaces and underperforming existing parks to

inspirational and open spaces. the proposed project will have three spaces. it will serve as a seating for outdoor community gatherings or for program participants to convene before or after programming. the space highlighted in tan, would be for activities like natural sculptures or fort building, and the space in purple will include large bolders to encourage climbing and moving and to engage the five senses. the goals of the proposed project are to increase nature connection and infrastructure in the bay view, and engage local families and youth in the design process, provide leadership opportunities for green nature and other use programs in the

design, construction and stewardship of the site, and support eco-system environmental programming. the project team would engage in community outreach scheduled to commence next month, in april, with the goal of starting construction in the fall of 2021. this nature play space would create a safe space for child unstructured play and discovery in nature. and that concludes my presentation. thank you. >> chairman: thank you for the presentation. colleagues, any questions or comments? i don't see any. is there a b.l.a. report on this item? >> chair, haney, there is no report from our office on this item. >> chairman: can we open this up to public comment, please. >> clerk: yes, mr. chair. d.t.is checking to see if

there are any callers in the cue. members of the public who wish to provide public comment, please press *3. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. mr. chair, there are no callers in the cue. >> chairman: public comment is now closed. thank you for your work on this. it is definitely an exciting thing. colleagues, any questions or comments before we move this forward. it's pretty straightforward. all right. i don't see any. i want to move this item to the full board with a positive recommendation. madam clerk, roll call vote. >> clerk: vice chair safai? >> aye. >> clerk: member mar? >> aye. >> clerk: chair haney? >> aye. >> clerk: there are three ayes. >> chairman: thank you so much. this will go to the full board with a positive

recommendation. can you please call item two. >> clerk: resolution approving an agreement with creative bus sales inc for low floor diesel hybrid buses (indiscernable) through a procurement by the state of georgia, for a term not to exceed six years to commence following board approval. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001, i.d. 1876060436, and then press ##. if you have not already done so, dial *3 to line up to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. >> chairman: thank you so much, madam clerk. we have, i believe, supervisor melgar may be here with us and janet martinson from sfmta to present on this item. >> mr. chair, i believe

mr. garenton from m.t.a. will be presenting. >> chairman: this is a wrong set of folks on my script. welcome, mr. chang, and i'll turn it over to you. >> good morning. let me share my screen. can you see the power point? >> chairman: yes. >> okay. great. thank you. hi. good morning, supervisors haney, supervisor safai, and supervisor mar. i'm with the sfmta. today i'm here to present an item to seek your approval to purchase the 32-foot motor coach replacement. okay. next slide. sfmta operates one of the cleanest fleets in the

country. over half of our fleet are zero emission vehicles, and these are the trolleys, historic street cars, and, of course, our iconic cable cars as well. they are operating with the latest hybrid technologies and using renewal diesel. in this pie chart i'm showing, this is the emission gas for the greenhouse gas in 2018. transportation is 45% contributing to the greenhouse, and for sfmta, for our vehicle, we only contribute less than 1%. and the majority of the emissions are coming from the cars and trucks operating in the city. in 20 -- actually in the year 2000, this is the year i joined muni, and then i recall back then we

purchased 330 neoplan coaches, and everyone was really excited, including myself, because all of the new vehicles arrived. shortly after that, they all aged and then it becomes a concern about the maintainability and reliability as well. so through lessons learned, we learned that we should purchase small quantities every year, about 6200, and then do it in a staggering fashion, and that's one way to keep our vehicle average fleet age to be around seven to eight. and then at the same time, we have actually increased our maintenance practice to meet our exceed the o.e.m. bus manufacturer's recommendation. we do have a 1k, which, as

far as i know, we may be the only agency during these interval inspections on the vehicles. and, of course, the last piece of that is actually thank you for your support, that we have basically procured the last round of the hybrid vehicles and trollies. and then at the board approval, we also are committed, and also it is required, that we will conduct a light overhaul on these coaches. so the 32-foot coaches we are about to replace, these are the vehicles that sfmta bought in the year 2007 from a company called orion. according to the federal transit administration, these vehicles are rated for 10years, and 350,000 miles. but, indeed, these vehicles have been serving our community since 2007, so that's roughly 14

years. and the average age of the fleet is 437,000, which is way beyond their useful life. and these coaches are very flexible because, obviously, they're serving our hill top routes, like 35, 36, 37, 39, 56. and those hilltop areas, there is one interesting fact about them: they have really tight turns. and we really do need to have these 30-foot vehicles to go up those areas. and they are the most flexible fleet as well because they can -- we can definitely deploy them on 40 or 60-foot routes, but not the other way around. one note worth mentioning, the orion manufacturer actually exit ised th exited ths market in 2012, so the

technical support has been really challenging for the last few years. so buying a quantity of 30 coaches going out for an r.s.p., we would potentially be running into the risk of paying a higher vehicle price just for the quantity that we are buying. so using the georgia department of administrative service contract, we could tackle on to a bigger procurement contract and leverage that and get better vehicle pricing. and we can also take into account taking the buses' delivery sooner. by doing so, we would expect the vehicles to be arriving here anywhere between 15 to 18 months. the vehicle itself, the contract we are entering into, is with a company called creative bus sales. and they're located in

southern california, and they do meet all of the city and county requirements and the certified vendor as well. and this table pretty much captures all of the funding sources coming from the prop "b" bay area tolls, and the self-tax. and the total project is $36 million, and that is including the vehicle contract and all other costs. and as mentioned before, these coaches have been having some difficult times to buy some parts. so by advancing the procurement now, sfmta did the analysis we could have saved approximately $7 million using the georgia contract, and then the savings will be pretty much coming from buying additional parts to stretch the vehicles' lives and then saving on the cost escalations.

this particular item was actually presented at the sfmta -- at the s.f. c.t.a. board in the month of january, and then in the month of march. so there was a question that was a very logical and reasonable question: why not buy battery/electric vehicles for these 30 buses? currently sfmta have a pilot with three bus manufacturers, and we're going to be buying a total of nine vehicles. and through them we can learn a lot about the maintenance changes, operation changes, charging infrastuctures, and the service dispatching challenges as well. through the initial experiences, we have learned the pga coordination in terms of the response time has not

been very fast. as of now, the first facility will be ready to support the battery/electric bus compensation will be (indiscernable). you can see the buses that are actually currently in production. those -- these two are the byd and the potrerro. they have an emissions policy, and our commitment is to purchase the battery/electric vehicle in 2025. however, as outlined early, our first facility actually will be ready for supporting the ebus charging for potrero will be in 2025. we had a meeting discussing about the rollout plan, and we're

committed to have the next six to nine months and open up the dialogues with technical experts in facility and technology, and with policy-makers and an environmental group to determine if 2025 might be a viable path for the ebus procurements. and this table pretty much captures the current items seeking for your approval. and if the item does get approved today, we intend to have to go to the board of supervisors and seeking for approval in the following month. and if everything goes accordingly, we could potentially have the first vehicle delivered in the last quarter of this year, and the remaining buses will be delivered in the first quarter of next year -- 2. that ends my presentation,

and i will be happy to answer any questions. >> chairman: thank you so much for the presentation. is there a b.l.a. report on this item? >> yes, chair haney and members of the committee. the proposed reservation would ask the board to approve a new contract tuay creative bus sales and sfmta to purchase 32-foot buses. the contract amount is $36.1 million, and this is purchased through the state of georgia procurement. we show the contract expenditures in the table of page four of our report. the total project costs about $36.4 million for actually putting these buses into service. funding has been secured for the city, $6.4 million. and we show the funding sources in the table on page five of our report, and we recommend approval.

>> chairman: are there any assessments coming from sfmta? >> the assessments were coming from the city attorney there to revise this resolution language. >> chairman: okay. is deputy city attorney pearson with us? >> yes, i am. good morning, chair mar. i'm not familiar with assessments to this resolution. i don't remember having received any. if i'm mistaken, i'm sorry. linda -- >> yes. the amendment was forwarded to the members of these committee, and i believe it was copied to -- you were copied on the e-mail. it was sent yesterday afternoon. >> okay. if you can give me a minute.

i don't remember seeing it. was it sent by you, linda? >> yes. >> okay. i'm going to pull it up in realtime here. >> chairman: all right. we'll come back to that, supervisor mar? >> thank you, chair haney. thanks for all of your -- thanks for the presentation and all of your work, mr. chang, on this. i'm just -- and i think this all makes sense, given the need to repair or replace the small bus fleet. and that's within -- it sounds like we're not quite ready to go to the full battery/electric vehicles for a bus fleet right now, so the timing doesn't quite work out to pursue a b.p. e. procurement. in the last part of your presentation, you mentioned that the m.t.a.

board said there would be a six to nine-month process -- i was just wondering what is the expected outcome of that planning process? and would that possibly lead to a decision for us to be become more ready for b.e.b. bus procurement sooner than what is planned? >> sure. and let me try -- thank you for your questions, and let me try to answer that. this current many, right now, our plan, the zero emission policy that we adopted is to have rollout of the battery/electric vehicles in 2025. but as i pointed out, the first facility will be ready to support the battery/electric vehicles in 2027. our planning group and our facility planning group,

at this point they are trying to have an open dialogue with all of the folks, and then hope we can try to see if we can push it to sooner, to meet the 2025. so at this point, i don't think i have enough information to provide a solid answer, but definitely the plan for the next six to nine months is to open up the dialogue and see if we can actually push that date to 2025. >> got it. and that sounds good. but that would not really change the conditions that were in on the decision around the replacement -- the repair or replacement of these small bus fleets? >> yes. that's right. >> got it. okay. thanks. >> thank you. chair haney, you're muted. >> sorry.

>> chairman: madam clerk, can we see if there is any public comment on this item, and then we can come back to deputy city pearson. >> clerk: mr. chair, d.t. is checking to see if there are any callers in the cue. members of the public who wish to provide public comment, please press *3. mr. chair, there are no callers in the cue. >> chairman: public comment is now closed. ms. pearson? >> yes, thank you. i've had a chance to find the assessments and review them, and they are not substantive. >> chairman: great. my understanding is they were sort of correcting some things that needed to be changed that were pretty simple within the resolution. colleagues, any other comments on questions? i think, obviously, we're happy to see us moving

towards less emissions and more hybrid coaches and ones that work better for our city and our operators and generally replace ones that are aging or problematic in various ways. and, of course, doing it in a lower emissions way, while keeping our goal to get to zero emissions and accelerating that process. and i know supervisor melgar was going to be here with us. is she a sponsor? what is her involvement with that? i wasn't entirely clear? >> or is she just supporting? >> she is a sponsor, chair haney. >> chairman: okay. got it. great. all right. with that, any other questions or comments from colleagues? i am going to make a motion to accept the amendments for this item.

can we have a roll call on that, please. >> clerk: vice chair safai? >> aye. >> clerk: member mar? >> aye. >> clerk: chair haney? >> aye. >> clerk: there are three ayes. >> chairman: and now i want to make a motion to recommend this item to the full board with a positive recommendation as amended. can i have a roll call, please. >> clerk: vice chair safai? >> aye. >> clerk: member mar? >> aye. >> clerk: chair haney? >> aye. >> clerk: there are three ayes. >> chairman: this will go to the full board with a positive recommendation. we'll look forward to seeing these out on the street soon enough, as soon as possible. >> thank you. >> chairman: with that, madam clerk, are there any more items before us today? >> clerk: there are no other items on this agenda. >> chairman: great. we'll see you all in a few

hours, to get a little more time for lunch today. there is no further business in front of us, so this meeting is adjourned. [meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m.] francisco

>> this meeting will come to order. this is the march 24, 2021 budget and appropriations committee meeting i'm matt haney joined by supervisors walton and ronen and mar. i want to thank