because of that i don't support the abandonment of equipment under chinatown. i believe the loss of finances and the loss of momentum could reduce the chances for an eventual north beach station. i do support the extraction at the 1700 block of powell. whether that be the pagoda or one of the adjacent properties. i think the pagoda itself has a lot of benefit. if the extraction takes place, if the land is leased from the property owner, not purchased, the property owner has a lot to gain. there is a high water table. there's tons of concrete, bleachers poured in the middle of that building. if the city extracted the unit there and left that property owner with a better situation, it would benefit both us and him. of course, the purchase of the property is what i'd like because i think there are a number of benefits to the neighborhood in having a transit station at that particular location. but we're not just talking about transit, bull the entire public relevant being of north beach. the escalator alignment and all the connections, i think for us it allows som

and you want to go out to eat after a movie, after a concert, you go to chinatown -- outside chinatown and north beach, it's not going to happen and people are going to go out of business. >> thank you. next speaker. >> roland salvato, denise dan, john bollinger and [speaker not understood]. >> good afternoon. >>> hi, roland salvato. thanks, directors. some mistakes are very expensive, and i'm afraid that's what's going to culminate here because there are and there have been a few mistakes beginning with things that are obvious in the documents that have been circulated. so, for example, the brief description written by i suppose the director describes community meetings that were held back in august. was there something obviously incorrect about that? because those community meetings didn't take into consideration a lot of the concerns that you're hearing now. if that's true that those community meetings were more than just an up and down vote, that it says later in the same document whether to approve the project or not, that's on page 3, then obviously you would have heard these con

i will say that chinatown as chinatown gets a surprising amount of coverage, not just in, you know, new york city, but in cities all over the united states, in part because of this exotic factor, for better or for worse. so if there's a crime or there is some kind of movement or there is some kind of building or there's a conflict, in certain kind of things they'll cover pretty well, compared to other immigrant groups, like, let's say, koreans or... korean americans orertainin of. like, maybe even south asian americans, i think partially because almost every major city has a chinatown or something thereof, right? and so in sort of the intellectual mind share of any given city, there's always a fascination with chinatown and chinese immigrants. >> hinojosa: you said that part of why you wanted to write this book was because you wanted to understand your own americanness, and you wanted americans, all of us, to understand who we are. >> right. >> hinojosa: so what don't we understand, and what did you come away understanding better about who you are as an american? and you have this beaut

we call the richmond district the new chinatown in the 1980's at that time. just being around the tremendous unique neighborhood, and discovering san francisco in the 1980's as i grew up, but i also have been very active as a community organizer. i worked in chinatown, and some first jobs also at the mental health center in the richmond area multi services in the 1980's, and i was also a staff are at the chinatown youth center -- i was also a staffer. a lot of my work has been supporting community empowerment, especially in an immigrant and people of color communities. most recently, i have been teaching at san francisco state. i ran the immigrant rights coalition in the city in the 1990's for several years. i'm also an immigration attorney, and a lot of my passion is supporting in power met for immigrant communities in the city as well. >> why did you choose to live in san francisco? supervisor mar: a lot of people bring this up, but is one of the most exciting, culturally diverse places in the world. learning about new cultures and people from different par

how can you sleep when you know you pushed the mayor's agenda in chinatown and north beach just as was done in the bayview and hunters point with the t-third? since the mta has decided to approve this project, it is time for the citizens of san francisco to abolish this board by putting in an initiative on the ballot to repeal property e. the mta has lacked integrity by making a nonintelligent decision to build a not needed subway while the rest of the system shrinks. >> next speaker, please. >> craig fonaro, lance carnes, steve taylor. >> good afternoon, mr. fonaro. >>> hi, thanks for giving me time to speak. can you hear me? first of all, i want to say that these new options that you have come up with are fabulous if, in fact, they're going to happen. but based on this report that i'm reading, i don't think that they ever will. i don't think february 1st, 2013 is near enough time to take on these new options. and i think that it's funny that february 1st, 2013, is probably two days before you're going to start digging the trench on columbus avenue. also it seems like to me, based on

also my father-in-law is in chinatown sro, too. my father-in-law's building had this bed bug infestation. when he goes to bed, all the bed bugs come out at night. so he got bitten pretty badly all over the neck, the head.

this is it. >> [inaudible] >> communities from the bay view to chinatown are being connected. this is it. >> central subway. >> affordable transportation is the life blood of all cities. right? this is it. >> central subway. >> from washington dc to san francisco we are here to accept brait a federally supported and grass-roots driven transit project that represents access for all to jobs, health care, their families. this is it. >> central subway. >> okay. a little extra. in the national play offs of life itself like buster posy we just hit a grand slam. this is it. >> central subway. >> it's been a long and difficult road towards a new and more inclusive transit system for san francisco neighborhoods, but we shall overcome. am i right? this is it. >> central subway. >> bless the construction workers and those that sacrifice so much -- you know who are you -- that san francisco can move towards a transit for the future and this is it and bless all of you on this wonderful day. thank you. [applause] >> before i invite the final speaker i just wanted to make sure i acknowledge

over 20-25 years ago when we were struggling with the earthquake, when people in chinatown said "gosh we're really going to suffer, and if we're going to be participating in our great economy in san francisco we have to find a way for better transportation routes to transfer people up north and down south of the city, and when we call ourselves a city as a transit first city there is no better example than that than what is reflected in the plans for the central subway. this project is a vital enhancement of our public transportation system. it's going to significantly improve the movement of tens of thousands of franciscans and if you were here this past weekend when people were predicting it would be jam san francisco instead of san francisco you knew that folks were educated because of the great leadership at our mta, our county transportation, all of our transit systems and were at the highest level of educating the visitors and others to use public transportation. it will work for all of us and as we build the housing units we identified in hunter's point and treasure island and

instead of the line ending in san francisco's chinatown, crews will extend the tunnel all the way to columbus avenue and powell street. cbs 5 political insider phil matier shows us there's still a lot of work that needs to be done to make that a reality. >> as we look at the future of the city of san francisco, i think it would make all the sense in the world. >> reporter: that was muni chief ed reiskin explaining why he is now proposing to extend the $1.6 billion central subway from chinatown to this abandoned theater in north beach. >> it would be great for north beach. it's an important neighborhood for the city. it would be great for the city. >> reporter: it would also be good politics. you see, the subway was going to stop here in chinatown but to get all the equipment in and out to build it, they would have to keep boring on down the street to north beach and pull all the machinery out by digging a big pit here at this intersection. >> it's going to disrupt the whole neighborhood and damage businesses. >> reporter: so the feeling was, chinatown gets the subway station and nort

, north of chinatown, would create a site access issue and jeopardizing the project schedule, leaving the tbm head in the ground would also preclude a reasonable near term project of extending the t-line to north beach. and the option as shown in the diagram reduces the overall project cost by approximately 21 to $23 million because it essentially reduces the project scope by about 2000 feet of tunnel. however, the overall project savings are unknown at this time since the agency would have to negotiate a modification with the tunneling contractor for the loss of a resale value of the two buried machines. and also would probably delay the station contractors' work as the two contractors would have to coordinator essentially work in the same location. now, option 3 before you is leaving the tbm head under columbus avenue. now, this option would require additional environmental study. also, the tbms would be encapsulated, large obstacles that would be difficult and disruptive to remove at a later date. this option would also complicate a future extension of the line and/or station. and